


We All Want to Change the World

by Tel



Series: Tides of Stars [2]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Colonialism, Gen, Hostage Situation, Komarr, Terrorism, Time Travel, War Crimes, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-20
Updated: 2009-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tel/pseuds/Tel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only takes five minutes for everything to go to hell. Laisa Vorbarra tries to survive one desperate morning on Komarr. Tides AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU fanfic tangentially involving time travel, and the sequel to _Tides of Stars_. The elder Lord Auditor Vorkosigan in this fic is a guest from a distant, ruined future, while his brother Admiral Naismith is a native inhabitant of the universe (and "recent immigrant to Barrayar") who has now learned not to wish he was twins. The rating is about the same as the books, which yes, is a warning. Nine parts and an epilogue.

"The revolution will be no re-run, brothers;  
The revolution will be live."  
\- Gil Scott-Heron, _The Revolution Will Not Be Televised_

"Mama, mama! I'm flying!"

Laisa ducked as Alys bounded off the couch, arcing across the room. The Komarran gravity in her father's Solstice flat was a literal weight off Laisa's back, but for Alys's Barrayar-forged muscles it must be like floating on air. The Empress of Barrayar failed to intercept her daughter, but Gregor's Armsman Gere snatched her effortlessly out of the air before she bounced off a wall.

The Empress frowned at her eldest child. Seven years old, or so ImpSec said. Even years later, she didn't know exactly where Alys had come from, unheralded and unlooked for. Her genes had been stolen to make this child, and the early years they should have spent together had been stolen too. It made her relationship with her adopted daughter… awkward, especially as Alys was thought by Vor society to be some illegitimate relation of Gregor's and no child of hers. She did look severely Barrayaran – brown-haired, hazel-eyed, scrawny rather than compact.

_I'm too young to be an evil stepmother_, she thought wryly, and let her daughter's dangerous rambunctiousness slide. The princess would grow out of it soon, surely. Laisa's own mother provided a timely distraction by suggesting that perhaps Alys would like to make cookies. Lured by the promise of sugar, the girl hopped out of Gere's arms and tamely followed Gran Toscane out of the room.

Laisa smiled in relief, picked up her wineglass, and wondered where her father was hiding. She walked past her eldest son, Prince Casimir, still sleeping with toddlerish torpor in his grav-cradle. He had his own set of armsmen already, six of whom were stationed around the living room and the annex. Laisa had her usual pair from Gregor's score on top of that. It was a miracle they weren't all tripping over each other.

She finally found her father in the media room, looking over his shoulder covertly at the Barrayaran guards while pretending to work. She suspected Ser Toscane wanted to challenge this invasion of his turf but hadn't quite worked up the nerve to do so. Laisa smiled at him in rueful sympathy. It was one thing when the Barrayarans occupied your planet, but something else again when they occupied your _apartment_. While the armsmen were in Komarran civilian dress, it just made them all look even more conspicuously foreign.

Laisa wondered again if she should have left the children and their not inconsiderable entourage with Gregor, but she wanted them to see more of Komarr than the sprawling governmental complex under Solstice's administration dome. The Toscane penthouse might be just as much of an overguarded cage but at least it had a much better view.

Looking up, her father shared a glance with her, one that asked the questions he couldn't ask in front of the men. Questions like 'is he treating you right?' and 'are you happy?'. They were hard questions to answer. Gregor the man she thought she liked. Gregor the Emperor was such a dominant part of who he was that she wondered sometimes if there was truly room for her in his life. Though, there was a certain romance to the insanity of Barrayar. Even Countess Vorkosigan thought so.

She smiled a little wanly at her father and sipped at her drink. It was hard, to come here and yet be unable to come home.

"How's your work going?" her father asked.

"It never stops," Laisa sighed. "I'm getting a lot done with the Ministry of Trade, despite the old fossils. But there's so much inertia… even Gregor has to be careful where he steps. It'd be difficult enough on its own without the endless entertaining."

"I thought you liked the entertaining?"

"Depends on the company. I'll never be Vor enough for some of these people." She scowled. "I don't want to be Vor enough for some of these people."

He looked pensive. "Barrayar is so strange. I worry about you sometimes, you know. When you can't even visit home without all your guards…"

"You've got bodyguards," she pointed out. He usually did, in any case. They had been unceremoniously turfed from the building by the armsmen.

"Not like yours!" he said. From the looks on their faces, the Imperial armsmen quite agreed with that assessment. Her father eyed them and frowned. "Do you want to go out and do something? Shopping, maybe?"

"I was hoping for a _quiet_ visit," Laisa sighed. "I can't be anonymous. Not here in dome. And especially not with the children."

"Well," he said, glancing at the time. "I suppose we could watch Fazliu. She's having an admiral on, for once. Not sure the poor fellow knows what he's getting into."

"Oh, Gita's still on the air?" Laisa asked, considering his suggestion. She smiled at him. "I came here to decompress. Lazing on the couch sounds _just_ fine."

"She moved to the state broadcaster, of all things," her father answered, settling back. "They gave her a longer show on trade, but usually there's not a Barrayaran to be seen. The Imperial Counselor's press secretary sometimes dares it, but the military men tend to be astonishingly tactless live and everyone knows it."

"We don't actually watch the news on Barrayar…" Laisa mused. "It just isn't… useful. It's exactly like the Komarran variety in that it's not allowed to report anything interesting about Barrayaran politics. The newsfaxes aren't much better." She shook her head. "I think everybody who is anyone on Barrayar gets their news from a combination of security briefings and gossip."

Her father snapped his fingers to activate his high-end media display and started sorting through channels. "I was wondering if you knew the man. It's that Naismith fellow, the one who was a mercenary."

"Oh," Laisa said. "Him. Didn't you meet him at the Barrayaran wedding? I thought Admiral Vorkosigan introduced you."

Her father cleared his throat, by which Laisa gathered he'd been too intimidated by his Barrayaran counterpart on the wedding circle to pay much attention to the hordes of galactic guests. "The short one, in the ImpSec uniform?"

"No, that would have been Lord Vorkosigan," she said patiently. "Naismith was the one with the eight foot tall woman and the hermaphrodite. He wasn't in the Service yet." The dwarfish admiral had been making a point, she supposed, but she wished he hadn't chosen to make it at _her_ wedding.

"Oh, yes. How'd he get invited then?"

"He's old friends with Gregor, apparently," Laisa said, and frowned. Gregor's bizarre relationship with Naismith had never been explained entirely to her satisfaction. "They met during the Vervain crisis. Of course, he's also Vorkosigan's son after a fashion. I'm sure you've gathered that much."

"You don't seem to like him," her father observed.

"It's not that…he's very entertaining. He's just _very_ odd and calls at the _strangest_ hours. I'm not sure he actually sleeps." She gathered her thoughts. "They probably had him do the interview as part of the cover for our visit. Gregor wants to avoid the press, but privacy is so much harder to come by here…"

"Ah! Is _that_ why Admiral Vorkosigan is visiting Solstice with such great fuss, then?"

Laisa smiled. "Another sacrificial media lamb – though I'm not sure stirring up the radicals at this stage is a good idea." She glanced in the other room again, more nervously. "He and Gregor do have actual Sergyaran business to discuss, of course."

A stern-looking Barrayaran newsreader was silently finishing the hourly update on the media display. Her father waited until he was done and Interstellar Exchange's bombastic intro music was nearly through before unmuting the display with a gesture.

Fazliu appeared seated at her wide table, a holographic representation of the Nexus floating over it. She hardly looked older (a few cosmetic adjustments at work there, perhaps), but had changed her look again. Laisa's lip twisted as she recognized the telltale signs of a fashion sense forcibly stifled by the patriarchy. The poor woman looked positively _staid_ in an understated olive pantsuit, and her once-short black hair was now shoulder-length. Her heavy black pendant necklace and matching earrings were, if not exactly conservative, fairly boring by Komarran standards.

The host spread an open palm in a traditional Komarran gesture of greeting. "Welcome to Interstellar Exchange. I'm Gita Fazliu. This week, a trade war has broken out between Beta Colony and Tau Ceti V over accusations of metals dumping in the markets of Betan daughter colonies. Wormhole tariffs have been raised and many ships of both polities are being forced to reroute to maintain their profit margins." With a stylus, she sketched on the table in front of her, highlighting the relevant planets and regions in the floating display as she spoke.

"Meanwhile, loosening restrictions on commercial passage between Marilac and Xi Ceta have created opportunities for shippers, but what are the risks? Joining us this morning in our Solstice studio is Rear Admiral Miles Naismith of the Imperial Service, who has recently been appointed military attaché to the Marilacan Confederacy. Welcome to Komarr, Admiral."

"Thank you, Dr. Fazliu." Naismith replied in his characteristic Betan drawl. He was a lean and energetic man, startlingly short even on the holo. Wearing his Imperial dress greens like a second skin, he perched comfortably on a chair opposite Fazliu. An astonishingly colorful collection of medals was displayed on his chest, including no less than three Barrayaran Imperial Stars, his controversial Order of Victory, a handful of other Service decorations, and a wide and varied assortment of foreign awards.

Fazliu leaned forward. "Admiral, what is your interpretation of this recent thaw in relations?"

"I wouldn't call it a thaw, precisely," Naismith said. "The Marilacan government is still officially not speaking to the Cetagandans and no Cetagandan ships or crews are permitted in-system. The Cetas have imposed similar restrictions, of course. What this agreement does do is open the wormhole to third-party shippers. From a Barrayaran standpoint this is an extremely important development, since we are one of the few governments with favorable trade agreements with both the Cetagandans and the Marilacans at the moment. To a lesser extent, the Hegen Hub Alliance as a whole will benefit."

Laisa's father nodded agreement, though Laisa had no doubt he was better informed on the economic implications than either of them.

"Some are saying the Marilacans are caving on their determination to single-handedly blockade Cetagandan trade," Naismith continued. "I would disagree with that assessment. The Marilacan blockade was enormously damaging to the Cetagandan Imperial economy, coming as it did in the aftermath of years of disruption to that route. A small but significant fraction of internal Cetagandan commerce travelled the Xi Ceta route through Marilac and Zoave Twilight to Sigma Ceta. The Marilac closure also forced the Cetagandans to make large tariff concessions to fully re-open the Rho Ceta route here."

"So you think the Marilacan blockade accomplished its goal?" Gita highlighted the sprawling Cetagandan empire on the display.

Naismith raised his eyebrows. "I think… the Cetagandans will think more carefully about the consequences of invading their long-suffering neighbors in the future, yes. Although I admit that's what I would have said after Vervain as well. It's important to remember that Xi Ceta has been Marilac's trading partner since before the Cetagandan Empire existed in its present form. Culturally the two planets are very similar, though of course Marilac lacks the warrior class and haut aristocracy."

"I understand that you yourself played some role in the liberation of Marilac, Admiral," Fazliu said. "Would you be willing to tell us more about that?

Naismith's gaze across the table sharpened. "That – well, that started somewhat by accident, actually. Somebody in my position – my former position – generally has to be very cautious when getting involved with, um, partisan resistance struggles." The admiral was clearly choosing his words carefully, although his answers were not hesitant. "My part, while high-profile, was fairly minor in the long run. The real unsung heroes of that struggle were the remnants of the Marilacan Spaceguard. If they hadn't defected to Zoave Twilight at the last hour and prevented the Cetagandans from seizing the far wormhole, all of the extraordinary courage of the Resistance would have been in vain."

"That was back when you were a mercenary commander, of course," Fazliu prompted.

"Right." A small smile flickered across Naismith's face.

"Your background is quite unconventional for the Imperial Service. What brought you to Barrayar?"

"A combination of factors," Naismith said. "While my relationship with the Imperium has historically been strained at best, I worked with Gregor Vorbarra at Vervain and have always had a great deal of respect for him as a leader. In a certain weird sense Barrayar has always been my homeworld – I grew up steeped in its culture and mythology. And I have family here."

Fazliu folded her hands on the table demurely. "Your father is the famous Admiral Vorkosigan," she said. "Have you found it difficult to live up to his legacy?"

"_That's_ brave to ask," Ser Toscane said with approval.

Naismith's eyes crinkled. "What a _fantastically_ loaded question. No."

"Yet you use your mother's surname."

"Of course. Otherwise they would make me wear dress swords." His expression remained perfectly serious, but his eyes were laughing.

She blinked at him. "Have you found it difficult to adjust to being a Barrayaran officer?

Naismith smiled. "I think it's important to point out here that the Service has always been a diverse institution that integrates people from many different backgrounds into a cohesive whole. That's something that I consider one of its key strengths. In the past, it was forged together from warring private armies not so different from the one I ran. There are brilliant General Staff officers today who were scared young men on the wrong side of Vordarian's Pretendership thirty years ago." His lip quirked, "One or two were even on the wrong side of the Komarr Revolt."

Gita pressed the point. "But surely there must have been some culture shock in going from a freewheeling mercenary outfit to the Imperial Service. It's an interesting move for someone of your, er, stature to take."

Naismith's eyebrows rose slowly. "Dr. Fazliu, are you accusing me of selling out to the man?"

"What?" A wrinkle in her forehead betrayed her confusion.

"You had a thriving career in local news before you chose to host Interstellar Exchange for the occupation," he pointed out dryly. "I'm sure you had your reasons too."

It was easy to forget there were things one couldn't say on Komarr until someone said them. "Did he really just…?" her father said.

"He should back off," Laisa said tightly. "He's going to get her fired going on like that."

It took a second or two for Fazliu to wipe the look of glassy half-panic off her face, but she recovered valiantly and changed the subject. "Whatever did happen to your mercenary fleet?"

Naismith leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "As an Imperial officer and sworn liegeman to Emperor Vorbarra, it's completely out of the question for me to maintain a private army," he said seriously. "The Dendarii corporation was dissolved after the Reach War, and now only exists as a holding company to lease out fleet-owned vessels to independent captain-operators. While I'm still theoretically responsible for that end, the income goes to the Dendarii pension fund, and I don't see any of it. Since my second in command and most of my core staff retired with me, the surviving ships split up. A few of my senior officers – Mohammed Truzillo and Elli Quinn – have since created their own outfits."

Fazliu smiled, but there was still an edge of panic in her eyes. "Yes, I understand your fleet was mixed-sex. Do you miss working with female officers?"

"The Barrayaran military is segregated rather than all-male," Naismith observed. "I do some work with the auxiliaries from time to—"

The vid flickered out.

A bright flash illuminated the media room through its translucent curtains. After another brief pause the vidfeed returned. As Fazliu rose to her feet looking terrified, Naismith ducked out from under the table and raced off-set.

A painfully loud roar belatedly shook the penthouse, and then something screamed through the air above. Naismith's authoritative yell cut through the ambient noise. "Cut the broadcast. Turn everything off _now_!"

The vid went out once more, this time for good. After a series of distant thuds, there was silence except for faraway sirens. Laisa moved to the window to peek out, confirming in her heart what she knew the sirens meant. The shape of the horizon was wrong, and icy clouds of frozen water vapor boiled out of the heart of Solstice. The great five-kilometer-wide Administrative Dome, the largest manmade structure on Komarr, had been breached.


	2. Chapter 2

"I hear the roar of a big machine  
two worlds and in between  
love lost, fire at will  
dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill, I hear  
dive bombers and  
empire down"  
-The Sisters of Mercy, _Lucretia, My Reflection _

"Condition Harlequin," Armsman Gere said. "This building is not secure. We must leave."

_Gregor's down there_, Laisa thought. The sleek drop shuttle that had screamed past the penthouse disappeared into the rising water vapor clouds, followed by three of its kin. "Breath masks," she said.

"We have some in the aircar. Please, milady, now."

She nodded, hurrying through the door. Her father followed. He looked terrified for her.

"Ser, madame, if you will come with us." Casimir's senior man said, leaving no room for argument. Laisa's mother, a safety engineer by trade, already had her breath mask on. "The oven!" she said distractedly, rushing back into the kitchen. Laisa looked around for Alys, and found her with a mouth stuffed full of cookie dough.

"Don't wipe your hands on your—" she started, as Alys wiped her hands on her dress.

As two of the armsmen had a low discussion in French, Laisa was herded through the pressure door to the unmarked Imperial aircars. Casimir was carried into one car, awake and querulously complaining, while Laisa, her armsmen, and the rest of her family hurried into another. As soon as they were inside, Laisa pulled a child's breath mask over Alys's head, just in case.

They travelled in silence at first, as if worried that if they talked too loudly someone would hear. Ser Toscane stared through the tinted window at the shattered outline of the main dome, while Alys licked her fingers and Laisa fretted. "Where are we going?" she finally asked the armsman-driver.

"Safehouse A," he said, breaking another Komarran traffic law as he swerved violently around a building. "It's the furthest underground. Radiation-shielded."

"Right," she said quietly. Were they at war, then? And with who?

"If we're all working off the same contingency plans, someone from ImpSec should meet us there," Gere said. The armored aircar delicately touched down.

They were in a small alley near one of the sewage reclamation plants. The driver keyed in the autopilot on the aircar as they disembarked, surrendering it to Solstice's traffic control system. Casimir's party had beaten them there, and they followed the last of his armsmen down several flights of stairs to a deep utility tunnel. Gere slid a gate across the entrance once they were all in.

It was only a short walk down the tunnel to an anonymous side door, which opened into an even more anonymous storage closet. Behind the closet's shelves was a concealed door leading to a low-ceilinged, barracks-like room. The armsmen filed in, but Laisa hesitated at the threshold. Waiting patiently in the room was Duv Galeni.

She'd met Duv years before, when she was still living on Komarr. Many men were too intimidated by her reputation and her lineage to approach her, but he'd been brave – she thought. Over the course of a month or so, he'd impressed her with his keen insight and intelligent conversation, carefully cultivating her friendship. And then, one day, he'd led her to a very private room at a very private restaurant. There had been a man there, and a grave-eyed child upon his lap.

She'd wondered ever since if the man she'd thought she'd known then had been the real Duv Galeni, or if his real self hid somewhere behind the eyes of Horus on his high collar. He'd been the one to fast-penta her about Alys, with typical exquisite courtesy. A commodore now and head of Komarran Affairs, he was the fourth most senior man in ImpSec's internal hierarchy.

"You're alive," he said. "Good. Come with me."

"What about the children?" she asked, keeping her voice steady.

"They'll be safer here," he said, "but we need you now. Gregor's missing, and you are the prince's guardian."

"Presumed dead?" she asked. Her voice wavered.

"Presumed missing," Duv said with a frown.

"Where are we? Is this ImpSec?" She looked around. It did have that dismal look.

"One of the sub-levels of ImpSec Komarr," he confirmed. Ser Toscane stiffened slightly.

"My parents," she said, looking back at them.

"They'll have to stay here," Galeni said reluctantly. He looked directly at her father. "We'll inform your colleagues that you're safe."

Laisa nodded. She gave Alys a quick kiss and squeezed Casimir's tiny hand before ducking through the half-height door Galeni had come in through. The security door behind that slammed shut after they went through with a final-sounding thud.

"Is that a safehouse or a prison?" she asked, unnerved.

"Yes," Galeni said. He keyed a security code into a lift tube door and waited for Armsman Gere to go ahead. Her second armsman followed behind, fingering his nerve disruptor holster. They went up about five meters to another floor, and turned down a wide hallway until they reached a set of double blast doors.

A man looked up as the doors opened. "Excellent," General Rathjens said as she, Duv, and her stone-faced armsmen entered the nerve center of ImpSec Komarr. "At least we know where _you_ are."

"Have you located the Emperor?" Galeni said urgently.

The head of ImpSec Komarr looked grim. "We've been combing through the surveillance vids of the High Consulate complex, although much of that network is unfortunately now down. The Emperor was stunned in the first minute of the assault, and I believe we can assume he is a hostage. Count Vorkosigan and the Imperial Counselor were taken alive."

Laisa absorbed this quietly, trying to keep her face a mask. _Gregor_. A cold fear rose in her – not just for Gregor, but for her children in a world without him.

"_Damn_," Galeni growled. "And everybody else?"

Rathjens brought up an extensive table of hundreds upon hundreds of names on the room's main display. "This is everybody who was residing in the complex or went through security this morning, to the best of our knowledge, color-coded by what we know of their status. Red is dead. Orange is stunned or captured. Yellow is unknown. Green is confirmed escaped – we have a few of those, but the carbon dioxide levels have risen to the point that the doors have locked, so we're not expecting many more. There's been sniper activity from the consulate roof against escapees as well."

Laisa stared at the display. Gregor's name was at the top – everybody else's seemed a blur. She forced herself to read down, looking for names she recognized. Cordelia Vorkosigan's name was marked orange. Localized swathes of red attested to the slaughter of armsmen and guards, but much of the rest of the long list was in yellow.

"God." Galeni shook his head. "Let's hope we get them all out, or we won't have a colonial administration _left_."

Laisa found herself a little nonplussed by Duv's Barrayar-centric phrasing. Rathjens raised his eyebrows too, but instead of commenting he looked past Laisa to her ever-present bodyguards.

"Armsmen," Rathjens said quietly. "With the Empress's permission, could you aid us in identifying your dead from our recordings? We've been having difficulty."

"Yes, of course," Laisa said at Armsman Gere's inquiring look. Her other guard was looking even blanker than usual, a sure sign that he was extremely upset.

Galeni narrowed his eyes at the display, reaching up and tapping at one yellow-marked name. "Lord Auditor Vorkosigan is at large, then?" he asked.

Rathjens frowned and chose his words carefully. "I'm suspicious of how he instantly dropped everything and ran when the shuttles went through the dome. I didn't know he could _move_ that fast, what with that cane of his. His bodyguards barely kept up, but he does seem to have slipped the enemy's net."

"I can see you've never worked with Lord Vorkosigan," Duv said. "_I'm_ not surprised. Are you tracing his seal?"

"The tracer circuit isn't working. I suspect he's disabled it. Whenever he uses it on a secure device it pings us, though, so we're tracking him that way. He's in the subbasement utility tunnels, we think. The pattern of activity suggests he is not a captive."

Duv nodded thoughtfully. "And Naismith got out?"

Rathjens shrugged. "Him? Unknown. The media studios are fairly distant from the intrusion point. The invaders swept the area, but not until long after he disappeared. As far as we know he's still in the building."

"So he wasn't a target," Duv said. "That tends to argue against our uninvited guests being Cetagandans. Do we have _any_ idea who these people are yet?"

"I don't have any information," Rathjens said tightly. "Galactic Affairs said they'd call in ten minutes from orbit with what they know. Fifth Fleet command tight-beamed to assure me they'll destroy or capture the shuttle mothership imminently. The Solstice garrison wants to storm the palace right now. I've fielded other calls. Everybody is looking for information." He glanced sidelong at Laisa. "And everybody wants to know who's in command now that the Emperor has fallen into enemy hands. I've been avoiding the question."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop as Galeni turned slowly to scowl at his colleague and subordinate. "Under the new Imperial Succession Act the answer to that is _quite_ clear, Abram," he bit out.

"Prince Casimir is _two_," Rathjens pointed out.

"And his mother is his designated regent. Confirmed by the Counts and Ministers in joint session, no less. Do you have an _issue_ with this, General?" Galeni's hooded eyes blinked, lizardlike. Laisa's armsmen tensed.

"It's not me that's the problem, Commodore Galeni."

Galeni's frown deepened. "I understand. Nevertheless, the Empress must be visibly in control of the Imperium. Any other route - _any_ other route, will lead to unimaginable chaos."

Laisa continued staring at the list of known and potential hostages, feeling numb inside. As Galeni finished speaking, she found herself the center of attention. All the men in the room were watching her now – some skeptical, some quietly contemptuous, some hungry for any hope she could provide.

_Oh_, she thought to herself blankly, _They mean me._

She swallowed before putting on her game face and addressing Rathjens. "Indeed. Firstly, General, I'd like you to—"

Every vid-screen and holodisplay in the room shut off.

The armsmen instantly went for their weapons and Galeni froze. With a sick feeling Laisa turned to the door, wondering if anonymous commandos were coming now for her and her children. Her helplessness in the face of such a threat gnawed at her. But _she_ was now the protector, she the one expected to defend not only them, but everybody.

_Is this what Gregor feels like?_ she wondered.

With a soft chirp the holodisplays reactivated, each displaying a three-dimensional representation of the Imperial seal. **OVERRIDE** was printed above the seal in both English lettering and the old Barrayaran script. Half the screens in the room displayed similar messages now, while the other half showed a hopelessly garbled mix of colors and text scrolling almost faster than her eyes could follow.

"That's not us," Rathjens said heavily. "That's them. But how?" Both he and Commodore Galeni were looking extremely bleak. "If they're on _that_ channel…"

The seal vanished. On the command room's main display, Komarr's ornate Imperial audience chamber resolved itself. She and Gregor had been there just yesterday for the private presentation of Gregory's Viceroys to Casimir. The room was decorated in the most formal Barrayaran style, all high ceilings, pillars, and intricate woodwork. She half-expected to see Gregor's decapitated body with "sic semper tyrannis" written on the floor in his blood, but there was no sign of him. About a dozen people were arrayed around the chamber, and the furniture had been rearranged oddly. Some were seated, some were standing, but none wore masks or made any attempt to hide their identity. Aside from one woman in colorful Betan garb, all wore formal Komarran suits.

In the center of the projection, Gregor's Komarran throne sat empty. Two men and the Betan woman were seated nearby behind a repurposed side table, one in Laisa's own ceremonial chair. A man and a woman stood stiffly to either side of the empty throne. The other Komarran men appeared to be guards of a sort. They wore body armor and bore lethal-looking weapons.

One of the men behind the table stood. Galeni drew in a breath.

"People of Komarr, your attention please," the man began in a faint Solstice accent. He was an older gentleman, perhaps in his sixties or seventies, although his dark brown hair showed no sign of gray. "I am Gil Obis, and I speak for the government of Komarr returned from exile, for the oppressed and the dispossessed, for the living and the dead."

"Him?" Rathjens said incredulously.

The man's eyes were gleaming. "Wake up from your long sleep, Komarr, and remember that a share in this world belongs to you. We have retaken our world from the powers that have so long oppressed it, and now hold those most responsible for our suffering in our hands. No longer will there be murder without consequences, disappearances in the dark. No longer will the rape of our world's economic resources to feed this malignant feudal cancer be tolerated. No longer should our families and friends fear the cold-eyed sociopaths who stalk our streets. They can be beaten, they can be tamed, and we have overcome them here, in the heart of their power."

Laisa's mind raced. So _this_ was the infamous Ser Obis! She'd always been conscious as a child of the "missing families" in her exclusive social circle, the ones that had chosen not to cooperate in the Conquest or the Revolt and were now dead or fled. As primary shareholders, Obis, Jiang, Galen and Moretti were the greatest of those lost clans, though there were other scattered families that had been equally decimated. Ser Obis was one of the very few survivors of the pre-Conquest administration, though he had not been a Counselor.

She'd only seen his face once, when she was in graduate school, though he had looked much younger then. A colleague had passed her an extremely illegal little datadisc with an uncensored recording of him speaking against the Barrayarans on Escobar. Laisa had watched it a quarter of the way through before her fear of Imperial Security overrode her keen curiosity.

"I ran intelligence on Obis and his cronies for Galactic Affairs nearly a decade ago, on Earth," Galeni growled to Rathjens. "He's just a blowhard. I doubt he's the brains behind this."

"Does he really believe his own propaganda?" Laisa asked.

"Maybe," Galeni said. "I'm surprised he had the guts to put his own neck at risk for something this insane. His lecture circuit fees must be drying up." He eyed Obis's still-speaking image with ill-concealed contempt.

"It is our sacred duty to bring justice," Obis continued softly, "but as civilized men and women we do not seek vengeance for vengeance's sake. The monsters among us deserve a chance to defend themselves in their own words even as their actions condemn them." His chin rose and he sat. "Bring him in, Mr. Leary," he said with deep satisfaction.

Laisa stared intently at the visual, forcing herself to be calm. _Not Gregor, please…_ Galeni's breath hissed through his teeth again as the cold-faced Komarran partisans escorted Aral Vorkosigan into the room. Though his House uniform was in slight disarray, the white-haired Count _seemed_ unharmed. Vorkosigan's square, unlovely face showed no expression as he was forced to stand before Obis's table.

"Admiral Viceroy Count Vorkosigan," the man next to Obis said, drawling his foe's titles out. Perhaps eighty, the remaining wisps of his hair were silver and his face was heavily marked with liver spots. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are the man holding my wife hostage," the Count said flatly.

"I assure you, she will be treated better than you treated mine," the man said, leaning forward. "I am Lutang Moretti."

Vorkosigan's bushy eyebrows rose slightly. He glanced from Moretti to the Betan woman sitting at his left and they rose further. Laisa circled the display to get a better view.

"You seem to have rather overstepped your jurisdiction," Vorkosigan commented after a moment.

"This is not Barrayar anymore, Admiral Vorkosigan," Moretti said. "Indeed, it never was. This is free Komarr. All crimes against her will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Laisa was suddenly aware that the command center had gone totally silent.

"And is that the purpose of this terrorist farce then?" the Count asked. He was doing a fair job of keeping an even tone, but his eyes cut with anger.

With a thin smile, Moretti ignored Vorkosigan to nod at his companions. "May I introduce my fellow justices. Lisa Dubauer has worked with me for fifteen years in the Tribunal for Interstellar Crimes on Beta Colony. She has been a tireless advocate for the voiceless victims of a dozen interstellar wars. And I am sure you know Ser Obis."

Vorkosigan crossed his arms. "You have not yet mentioned the charges you suppose to try me on, or more importantly your authority to do so. To my understanding you and Miss Dubauer have both _resigned_ from the Interstellar Judiciary Commission, yes?"

Moretti glanced down at a flimsy. "This court will be addressing the charges of war crimes and crimes against interstellar peace initially laid in the indictment issued by the Tribunal for Interstellar Crimes after the conclusion of the illegal invasion of Escobar thirty-three years ago. Several amendments followed, and the fourth amended indictment was filed with the Tribunal in Komarran year 401. This current indictment covers the Komarran Conquest, the Escobar War, and the crimes against humanity committed during the Komarran popular revolt of 395 to 398 while the defendant was head of state."

The Count made to interject, but subsided as a nerve disruptor was aimed at his face. Moretti stared piercingly across the table at him "Vorkosigan, it has been confirmed that you were served with this amended indictment twenty-four years ago on Barrayar." His tone became sardonic. "You have thus had more than sufficient time to review the charges and seek independent legal advice."

"You are failing to mention that the IJC withdrew all of its libelous accusations against me three years ago. This maneuver of yours is entirely illegal under both interstellar law, and the laws of your adopted planet." Admiral Vorkosigan said in an extremely dry tone.

A flash of fury from Moretti. "For _political considerations_," he spat. "Do not think your government's strongarm tactics will protect you. There is a higher justice to which we are all held." He collected himself. "Your prosecutor will be Mario Albescu, one of the many children of the exile. Francesca Khatabi has graciously agreed to serve as your defense counsel."

Vorkosigan glanced at the indicated woman. He seemed almost amused. "Am I not to be permitted my own lawyer, then?"

Moretti smiled. "We have studied your customs, Vorkosigan. It is our understanding that a lord of the Vor is expected to conduct his own defense. We are offering as a courtesy. Nothing more."

"It's quite all right, dear," Vorkosigan murmured to Khatabi in a grandfatherly tone, "I'll manage." The corner of his lip twitched in faint amusement at her subsequent full-body flinch.

General Rathjens's voice had a rough edge. "The only redeeming value I can see to all this is that people will be too busy watching to riot in the streets." He curled one hand into a fist and uncurled it again, apparently unconsciously.

"History in the making," Duv agreed bleakly. "But we _can't_ move until we locate the Emperor."

Moretti was still smiling. "Do sit," he said, nodding to Gregor's throne in the holodisplay. On Komarr it was indeed a throne and not a Barrayaran-style camp stool - there was a different sort of symbolism involved.

Vorkosigan's armed escorts drifted closer like circling sharks. The Count stared at the Imperial chair in mute dismay, and physically balked when one of the Komarrans laid a hand on his arm to pull him along.

"I would be pleased to sit on the floor," he started. As his escorts pushed him forward he twisted one arm free, tripping one of the middle-aged guards and sending the man sprawling to the ground. The other men swiftly overpowered him, forcing him into the seat. Finding his struggles ineffectual, the Count desisted, but his stare at the justices became utterly venomous. Obis leaned forward, clearly enjoying the spectacle behind a veneer of pious professionalism.

"Restrain him," the prosecutor Albescu said. He nodded to one of the guards. The guard came forward bearing a set of manacles, which he used to lock the Count's wrists to the arms of the throne. Vorkosigan made a low, feral sound as the second manacle snapped shut.

"General Rathjens," Galeni said, looking up from an intent discussion with a subordinate. "We don't have communications right now. I need you to personally take an aircar, find the on-site commanders, and make sure they don't do anything idiotic like stage a premature assault."

"We have _no_ communications, DeWalt?" Rathjens asked.

The indicated captain swallowed. "We're undergoing a sustained infowarfare attack on all public consoles and our private networks as well. This broadcast is going out on all channels across all of Solstice and quite possibly planetwide. Somebody seems to have activated a Conquest-era Political Education backdoor in our systems using the Emperor's seal and our own transmitters are also compromised. All receivers are overwhelmed or nonfunctional, and we've temporarily lost our orbital tight-beam. The tight-beam is fixable, everything else is not."

"I need you there, Abram," Galeni said urgently, speaking over the Komarran broadcast. "They know you and you're Barrayaran enough that they'll listen to you."

Rathjens's eyes narrowed. "We let them have their show, then?" His gaze slid sideways, meeting Laisa's.

"We need more time," Laisa said with reluctance. "And yes, we need a man on-site, General. If an opportunity arises, we can't wait half an hour for a courier here. Though Commodore Galeni, perhaps you should…?"

Duv shook his head and looked very strained. "It can't be me. The army men are… conservative. General Rathjens works with them regularly. He knows them well and has a hope of getting them under control."

"Not if those traitors shoot the Admiral," Rathjens said bleakly, staring at the projection.

"Do your best," Duv said, eyes hooded again. Laisa wondered about their working relationship. They were the same substantive rank, but Rathjens was older and Galeni had only recently been placed above him as head of Komarran Affairs. Did Duv trust him? Could Duv trust him with this? Rathjens nodded to his superior, turned to bow deeply to Laisa, and silently left the room.

The continuing argument in the makeshift Consulate courtroom distracted her once more. Vorkosigan was speaking now, his tone laced with acid. "…I am just establishing to my satisfaction exactly what sort of court this _is_, Ser Moretti. Despite your Betan pretenses, this is a lynching."

"You have had thirty-five years to submit yourself to Betan justice," Moretti said softly. "I have been waiting. Vorkosigan, your cooperation in these proceedings is desired but not by any means _required_. "

"Are you going to repeat the crude threats against my person and household your people made in the hall?" the Count asked.

"Your master is as criminally culpable in the continued oppression of Komarr as you, Vorkosigan," Moretti said. "Everything you did you did in his name. All of your crimes reflect upon him. His failure to prosecute you makes him equally guilty under the law. In exchange for your full cooperation we will not make him answer for this."

Galeni drew in a breath. "Damn," he muttered. "Damn, damn, damn."

Vorkosigan's eyes slitted. "This is terrorist hostage taking, Moretti. A war crime, even, were you an army instead of rabble."

"Mr. Albescu, the indictment, if you please," Obis cut in.

The prosecutor stepped up to the table, turning to face the invisible audience of millions. "Knowledge of the crimes committed by Barrayar against our people has been brutally suppressed by decades of cruel censorship," he began. "We will now be providing the full text of the indictment to every comconsole on the planet so that you understand what we are doing here and why we must seek justice." A series of soft chimes echoed across the ImpSec control room as various comconsoles received the file.

Albescu inclined his head at the Betan woman Dubauer, who smiled brightly down at the prisoner. "Admiral Vorkosigan, unless you wish to plead guilty to some or all of the charges the court will enter a not guilty plea on your behalf," she said in a friendly tone. "If you plead guilty to the majority of the fifty-one counts, the court is willing to proceed directly to the sentencing phase."

"_Betans_," Galeni growled. Laisa had to agree. There was something profoundly unnerving about Dubauer's attitude. Moretti's hatred and Obis's clear contempt were much more understandable.

"I don't see that it much matters," Vorkosigan said. "You're clearly not going to permit me to call witnesses or submit documentary evidence."

"Admiral Vorkosigan," Moretti murmured, "the only witness we need is _you_."


	3. Chapter 3

"Behind the Iron Curtain  
Behind the barbed-wire fence  
What untold deeds of chivalry  
Might spring to his defense?"  
\- Gerry Dempsey, _The Unknown War Criminal_

A perfect and terrible silence fell upon the command center of ImpSec Komarr. Duv Galeni gripped the back of a station chair as he watched the holoprojection, eyes hard. The main projector showed a room, which contained a man and his captors.

"Should you choose to plead not guilty, Admiral Vorkosigan, you will be examined publicly on each of the charges under fast-penta," Lisa Dubauer continued with brisk efficiency. "If you are indeed innocent, you will be released."

"I see," the Count said. His face was stonelike. "This is not standard procedure in any civilized nation."

"Vorkosigan, you have proven your sworn word cannot be trusted in court – or anywhere else," Ser Obis said with a smile.

The Count drew in a breath. For a wild moment Laisa thought he might surge out of the chair he was bound to and throw himself at his tormentors, but he let the jibe pass without comment.

"You have the right to have the indictment read publicly if you wish to refresh your memory," Dubauer added. From the side look Obis gave her, he was not pleased by her offer.

"I am familiar with the allegations against me," Vorkosigan said, expressionless once more. "My answer to them is as it ever was."

"Is that _all_?" Ser Obis asked. He sounded almost disappointed.

"We'll enter that as not guilty, then." Dubauer said. Her eyes twinkled as she smiled down at Vorkosigan. "The procedure now is that Mr. Albescu will establish the facts as you know them in regard to the various charges. Ms. Khatabi will then take over and inquire into your motivations and possible mitigating circumstances. Myself and my fellow justices Ser Moretti and Ser Obis may also ask you any question we see fit. When the interrogation is concluded, you will have the chance to make a statement in your own defense, Mr. Albescu will also make a statement, and we'll proceed to sentencing."

Galeni looked grim. "He'll be a dead man in any case. Damned by his own mouth."

Laisa blinked. "But Duv, if he didn't _do_ it… _We're_ not going to shoot him, surely?"

"You weren't on the front lines during the Komarr Revolt," Galeni said. His voice was quiet enough that she was sure none of his subordinates caught his words. "I was."

It took a few moments for the implications of that to sink in. There was only one side a teenage Komarran could have been fighting on. Her eyes widened.

"The man ran a military dictatorship for sixteen years. There are fifty-one charges on that list, and I _guarantee_ you he is guilty of at least one of them." He looked pensive. "And surely more besides."

"But Duv, _you're_ not..." she looked from him to the ringleader Moretti and back, shocked.

On the vid, Albescu was returning with a hypospray. "Shh," Galeni said.

"I have one request," Vorkosigan said quietly. "It is my wish that my wife Cordelia be present as my advocate during this... examination."

Dubauer frowned "Is she legally trained? If so, I don't see an issue..." She looked to Ser Moretti, who shook his head.

"We'll have to deny that. Go on, Mr. Albescu."

The Count's eyes followed the prosecutor as he walked closer with the hypospray. His shoulders tensed unwillingly. "I do not consent to this," he growled at Albescu, who smiled and pressed the hypospray home.

Vorkosigan's chin jerked up at its kiss, though he did not flinch away. A faint, odd smile flitted across his features as he looked at Albescu, vanished in snarling rage, and then reappeared. His brow furrowed deeply and he squinted his eyes shut.

"…didn't kill your wife, Moretti," he slurred, before slumping forward, When his eyes opened again, the spark behind them was gone.

"Please state your name and occupation for the record," Albescu began.

Vorkosigan's head rose, and he blinked at Albescu as if surprised to see him. "Aral. Viceroy."

The prosecutor sounded irritated. "Your full name."

"It's from my grandfather, you know. His was Xav Aral."

"He's not quite under yet," Duv whispered to Laisa. "But not allergic. I was almost _hoping_…"

"You _are_ Admiral Viceroy Count Aral Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr?" Albescu prompted.

"They don't call me that to my face," Vorkosigan breathed. A leering smile slowly crept across his features, giving him an animalistic look. "Can I help you?"

"Please briefly describe your military career to the court."

"I was the third man to take oath from Ezar Vorbarra," the Count began. Despite the fast-penta veil of calm, his sentences were scattershot and disconnected. "It started there, knowing war. My officer's oath was years later. Space duty, of course, until I went on staff. Komarr. Ezar broke me down to Captain after. He was saving me for Escobar, that hell. And then I was in command, until I could hand it off to Gregor, which only truly happened after Vervain. It was too important for him to know what war cost."

Albescu looked down at his notes. "How did you come to be in charge of the Komarr invasion?"

"I was the right generation, the right blood, and I knew my stuff," Vorkosigan said frankly. "It couldn't have been an older man for obvious reasons, and nobody doubted my bloodright to lead. I'd spent years in Komarr, commerce-raiding from our wormhole on Cetagandan shipping. Kanzian liked my plan, besides, and everyone listened to Kanzian even if he was common. Greatest space strategist never to have commanded a fleet in battle." He snorted. "Too old, still. We could have hit them sooner but there was a reason Ezar waited."

"Explain what part you took in planning the war of aggression against Komarr," Albescu said.

"Aggression!" Vorkosigan exclaimed. He sputtered a giggling laugh. "We never made peace with Cetaganda, and Komarr recognized the occupation as our government. The planet made its choice, back in the day. Reaped the whirlwind, true, but we were _gentle_."

Albescu was saying something, but his words failed to derail the Count from his train of thought. "A _proportional_ response would have been to kill everybody on the planet and freeze them to kill them again later," he continued. "Five _million_ slaughtered, and maybe as many quietly starved and vanished… all of your lives would not have been enough to recoup our dead. Smash the mirror, sterilize the ground like Vashnoi..."

Moretti's lip twisted in contempt. Vorkosigan's voice rose, dreamlike. "You do not know the blood we spilled. You do not know, you do not… I was a young man. I did not remember it. The old men would have destroyed you utterly for your treason. Ezar knew that well." His eyes focused, suddenly. "It was all the same war."

"So your justification for the illegal invasion is that…you thought we were the Cetagandans?" Albescu asked, his voice laced with contempt. "Komarr was the innocent party. We never harmed you."

"That's not true. Not true. You were a fucking allied satrapy, is what it came down to." Vorkosigan replied with slurred cheer. "They knew Komarr could be bought, but Barrayar never could. You didn't have the guts to fight them, so you sold your soul in secret. Obis knows that if no-one else does, he's taken enough money from their intelligence directorates."

"He's raving." Obis said, sounding bored. "Please keep him on topic, Mr. Albescu."

"Another few generations and they'd have given you a Greek letter..."

"None of them have _any_ idea how to run an interrogation," Galeni sighed. "I suppose that's a good thing." He looked up as one of his officers approached him.

"Sir," Captain Thibault said, "we've got the orbital tightbeam working and Admiral Lord Vorventa wants to speak with General Rathjens."

"I'll take this call, Captain," Laisa put in.

Galeni's eyebrows rose. "Very good, milady." After giving her an unreadable look he turned his attention back to the interrogation. Laisa stepped inside the secure comconsole alcove and activated the security cone.

"Report, Admiral," she said. Lord Philippe Vorventa was French, a younger brother of the current Count, and more than middle aged. His responsibility, if she remembered correctly, was the command of mobile space forces in the Komarr system.

"Empress," he said, looking surprised. He gave her a seated bow, the respect of a Vor lord to a lady, not of a subordinate to a superior. "I had hoped to speak with an officer."

She'd mentally rehearsed this in advance. "The Emperor has been incapacitated. By the will of the Counts and the Ministers, I now have responsibility for the Imperium in my son's name."

"I see," he said. "Milady, I need to speak with the general in command. Allowing this humiliation of Admiral Vorkosigan – please be advised that the space forces will not tolerate it. This must be stopped, and it must be stopped now."

"I am in command," she said, "and my generals follow me, as their oaths require." She hoped this wasn't bluster. Between the Barrayaran distrust of anything female or Komarran, and Duv's shocking connection to the Resistance, who dared she trust? "As soon as we can be sure of extracting the Emperor alive, we will move in."

"How long will that be, milady? Hours? Days?" His stare at her intensified, frustrated. "This stalling is not acceptable. If the ground commander is incapable of doing his job, so help me I _will_ send my marines."

"Who holds your oath, Vor lord?" she snapped. "If you feel it is Vorkosigan rather than Vorbarra, you may consider yourself relieved of command effective immediately."

Vorventa backpedaled. "I did not mean…"

She raised her chin. "I would hope not. The ground situation is not your concern, Admiral. Please apprise me of the situation in orbit. Have you cut off escape for these terrorists?"

He looked at her more warily. "We've disabled and captured their mothership. It's a solo mercenary vessel with no apparent current affiliation. Initial interrogations have indicated they expected to receive hostages and trade most of them away in exchange for escaping with Admiral Vorkosigan."

She frowned. "So something went wrong with their plan? Were they all Komarrans?"

"No, just hireling scum." His eyes went dark. "We'll find who they were really working for."

"How _did_ this ship get into our system, Admiral?"

The admiral looked strained. "We don't search every vessel, Milady, or even most. There are lists of banned and suspect ships, but this vessel wasn't on it. Because we let foreign trade fleets in, we're often obliged to let their armed escorts in, and a certain number of armed private groups have negotiated passage. This ship was on the cleared list, and has gone through Komarr at least eight times over the past ten years with no issues. It's a _small_ vessel, you must understand."

"Do the people on the ground know that you've taken their ship?"

"No. We hit them just after their jamming went up." Vorventa smiled tightly.

"Good," Laisa said. She stared at him a moment longer, wondering what to say. "If there is nothing else?"

"Ah," he said. "I would like to speak to—"

"My generals are busy doing their duty. _Goodbye_, Admiral." _Vor twit_, she thought, turning off her end of the transmission.

"Captain Thibault," she said, emerging from the alcove, "please compare notes with Galactic Affairs in orbit and see if they can tell us anything more about the situation. If you can get a satellite relay set up to the field command post or the military bases in town, have someone do that too."

"Yes, milady," he said, glancing again at Duv. The commodore gave no sign of approval or disapproval, staring at the holovid.

"They're almost to Solstice," he said to her distantly.

"Oh," she said.

"What did Vorventa want?"

"He's twitchy and wants to send in his marines."

"God, just what we need right now." He looked even gloomier.

"Nobody wants Komarr for Komarr. Awful little planet." Count Vorkosigan was muttering. His accent was stronger now, his voice more slurred. "Ezar would have been perfectly happy to take the wormhole, blockade the orbitals and let the world work its own damnation. Wouldn't have taken long. I did mention that to Miss Rebecca and her little committee, when we were working out terms. It hastened things along admirably."

"Miss… Rebecca?" Albescu looked a little baffled.

"Counsellor Galen, I suppose. It's so very distracting about galactics. All their forty-year-olds look like young misses and it's hard to take them seriously." He looked blearily meditative. "Galen impressed me as a negotiator. Scheming opportunist of course, they all were, but clearly brilliant nonetheless. The nephew's not quite as bright, but salvageable."

"Your negotiations were primarily with Counsellor Galen?"

"My dear man, you can't do anything on Komarr without going through five committees. Even when dictating terms, as I found. It was immensely annoying."

Albescu's teeth bared slightly. "What orders were you given in regards to the treatment of the Komarran government?"

"Oh, lots." A slurred laugh, "God, the orders. Ezar wanted them out of the way if they wouldn't submit."

A sick feeling rose in Laisa's stomach, as Moretti leaned forward in sudden, total focus. Galeni's expression was peculiarly frozen.

"The primary concern was that they'd go to ground and foment guerrilla war. _I_ never thought that was likely. At best they'd pay someone else to do it, from Old Earth, while sipping colorful tropical drinks paid for from," Vorkosigan snorted a very strange laugh, "_looted planetary funds_. With a few exceptions, of course." He looked at Moretti with wide glazed eyes. "Maybe more than I thought. The Minister of Finance was actually hoping they'd be a bit stroppy so we could get away with seizing more of the shipping concerns. Disloyal opposition is always so much easier to deal with."

"You accepted the surrender of the Komarran Counsellors, Admiral," Ser Moretti said. The Count looked confused and momentarily rebellious upon being addressed by another person. "Indeed, you guaranteed their safety on your word as Vorkosigan."

"Yes..." he roughly whispered.

"You had them killed. You broke your word."

Vorkosigan's head jerked up, the fast-penta muting a reaction that would surely have been much more violent otherwise. "_Lies_."

"Can you clarify that, Admiral?" Dubauer's clear voice broke in over Moretti's growl. "Are you saying you did not order the deaths of the Komarran Counselors?"

The mere sound of her accent seemed to calm him, and he relaxed. "I did not."

"Did you approve of their murder?"

"No. The Massacre was useless, counterproductive, needlessly brutal, and reflected on my personal honor. It was appalling."

"Did you ask anybody to kill them?" Dubauer continued patiently.

"No, madame," he said. Moretti watched this interplay coldly.

"We must consider the reliability of the witness here, nearly forty years later," Obis inserted. "Self-delusion can affect the dependability of a fast-penta interrogation."

"Yes, well, there are protocols," Dubauer said. She leaned forward. "Who gave the order for the murders?"

"Captain Bethencourt wrote out sealed orders to Major Gregg, who relayed them to the two lieutenants whose platoons actually carried out the executions," the Count replied.

"Who gave the order to Bethencourt?" she asked.

"Hard to say," Vorkosigan said. "It might have been done just to annoy me, or as part of some overly-convoluted plot against my father. I searched the ship exhaustively, and Political Education archives later, and found no record of any written order. Ezar denied it to my face, but I never really thought it was him. I knew his objectives." He slumped further in the seat, voice lowering. "If anyone was behind it it was Grishnov, but again that's hard to credit because Grishnov was no fool. Negri was fairly free with the assassination orders, but part of the wrong hierarchy." He frowned petulantly. "I've always thought I'm missing one piece somewhere that will make it all make _sense_."

"In your opinion," Dubauer continued patiently, "what is the probability Bethencourt was acting alone?"

Vorkosigan seemed to think about that for a few moments, processing the question with fast-penta slowness. "A little less than half?" he hazarded, sounding very unsure. "I really don't know."

"And at what point did the war crime in Solstice come to your attention?" she asked.

"One of the sergeants was a District man. He hopscotched the command chain to try to get my confirmation on the order, but by that time the other platoon had opened fire, and once somebody started shooting it didn't stop."

"What was your response?"

"I called Major Gregg, who denied anything of the sort was taking place."

"What did you do then?"

"I went groundside to see for myself, with the marine detachment I best trusted."

"By which point the massacre was over?"

"Er, yes," he said.

"Can you describe the scene of the crime?"

"There was blood everywhere from the flechette weapon crossfire," Vorkosigan said in a drifting tone. "Blood-streaked shards of metal were impaled into the wall, and on the floor, and everywhere, and the bodies were effectively shredded. Pools of blood, congealing. Corpses and blood and shifty-looking soldiers getting the hell out of my way… I didn't stay long."

"What legal action did you take against the persecutors of the massacre?"

"Arrested the lot groundside," the Count said, his consonants slurring again. "Had the lieutenants and the other sergeant shot after court-martial for the war crimes. The soldiers were imprisoned for a short time, but most of them were let go after I shipped them home. I couldn't touch Gregg – too political. He had powerful friends. And nobody in the whole Service would dare try Bethencourt."

"The ordinary soldiers were released?" Dubauer was finding it hard to maintain a neutral tone.

"Well, we generally don't encourage independent thinking in enlisted men," Vorkosigan said calmly.

She looked down, consulting a voluminous set of notes. "In your Komarr report, which fails to mention this Major Gregg, you stated that Bethencourt was also tried and shot. Did this in fact occur?"

"No," he said. "That's not true."

Dubauer's eyes narrowed at his past duplicity. "Are you saying Bethencourt never was put to trial for his crimes?"

"It would have been impossible to do so."

"This man was your _subordinate_, Admiral Vorkosigan. You had responsibility for his actions."

His pained look seemed bizarrely exaggerated by the fast-penta. "It was much more complicated than that! He was my _political officer_. To move against him was to move against the Emperor."

"Vorkosigan, are you saying you shielded two senior officers you knew were responsible for war crimes from prosecution?"

He looked baffled, as if the question made no sense to him. "I suppose. I did force Gregg's resignation upon gaining the Regency."

"Is he still alive?"

Vorkosigan shrugged. "Illyan would know."

"And thank God they can't fast-penta him," Galeni growled.

Dubauer frowned at him. "What _did_ happen to Bethencourt, if you didn't have him shot?"

"I broke his neck with my bare hands on my flag bridge." Vorkosigan's voice was so calm it took Laisa a moment to realize what he'd actually said. Her hand flew to her mouth.

Mutters from the Komarrans. Dubauer's mouth opened in absolute Betan moral outrage. "Without a _trial_?" she choked.

"Oh," Vorkosigan said softly, with the echo of past satisfaction in his voice, "he was a dead man."

"Admiral, that was murder!" Dubauer exclaimed.

"Yes, quite. Easier to kill a man that way than most realize. I was eventually acquitted, mind you."

"Do you normally go around committing_ homicide_ on people who upset you?" she sputtered.

"Not these days," he said cheerfully. "I've mellowed quite a bit since the soltoxin wrecked my balls."

"You're getting a little off track, Lisa," Moretti murmured.

Her lips pressed thinly together in disapproval "Yes, I suppose we don't have jurisdiction on that. Appalling man."

"I really don't care what you think," Vorkosigan mumbled. At loose ends, he peered around the room, finally focusing on Mario Albescu again. He smiled. "Hello..."

"Should I continue, ser?" Albescu asked Moretti. The chief justice made an impatient gesture.

"If I were in your place, I wouldn't," Vorkosigan said earnestly. "My wife is going to kill you, you know."

Albescu looked a little unnerved at the unsolicited advice. "We'll begin on the confiscations of civilian property now, then."

"It's like the final act of a Shakespearean tragedy," Galeni whispered. "They'll still be talking about this a hundred years from now."

"It's almost a comedy in places…" Laisa's brow furrowed. "I'm _glad_ he didn't do it."

"How embarrassing for Moretti." Galeni's brief grin was wolfish.

"A man who abandons his birthright has no claim to it," the Count said in response to Albescu's continued questioning. The audio cut out a quarter of the way into the prosecutor's next question, and the vid projection swiftly disappeared as well. After a moment of blank nothingness, the holodisplay returned to the image of the Imperial seal.

**OVERRIDE**


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh Superman where are you now?  
When everything's gone wrong somehow  
The men of steel, men of power  
Are losing control by the hour."  
\- Genesis, _Land of Confusion_

The Imperial Seal rotated once more, and then vanished in a garbled mess. **AUTOMATED INTEGRATION FAILURE** blinked twice in small letters near the bottom of the projection. A room resolved; Laisa recognized it as Fazliu's studio. One of the chairs was still toppled, and the display still showed the Cetagandan Empire.

"…remember where the least-exposed exit is," a male voice said

The image of the studio dissolved again, and the vid-image shuffled through half a dozen views in computerized succession, punctuated with static.

A new and radically different image flashed up, and stayed. **CORRESPONDANT MODE**, the small letters now read. In contrast with the clean lines of the room that they had just seen, this holoprojection was barely holding together. Not enough light, perhaps, or unstable holocam work. A dark room was revealed, with what looked like racks of high-tech equipment stacked up to the low ceiling.

Laisa suddenly and belatedly recognized the earlier voice as Admiral Naismith's. Vague silhouettes sketched themselves on the table and then dissolved.

She turned to ask Galeni something, but he seemed just as baffled as she was.

"Are they gone?" a woman's voice asked. Galeni stiffened in sudden shock.

"Duv, what is it?"

The commodore wasn't looking at her, though, but at the projection. "Vorkosigan, you _idiot_," he hissed.

"No. But if they were going to get away clean, they needed to have left by now," Naismith's voice said calmly. "None of their shuttles have taken off and they can't secure the whole complex with three or four squads. Not while keeping well over a thousand hostages pacified or stunned. They've done their sweeps, and they're holed up somewhere in the upper floors waiting for the inevitable assault. It should be fairly safe to move around down here."

"Well, until ImpSec breaks down the door," a different rumbling female voice added.

Duv stared balefully at the display. "He's dragged that journalist wherever he's hiding. Her jewelry must be hooked into the studio's holo-imaging network," he explained to Laisa in a tight voice.

"Does he know we can _see_ him?"

"I don't think so."

"Does _she_ know we can see him?"

"That's a more interesting question…"

Of course, Laisa thought, the prior broadcast hadn't only been for their benefit here. Hijacking emergency communication channels, it had gone out to all Komarr. Further, even, hitching rides on jumpships and propagating along spacelanes at the speed of light, racing to Escobar and Pol and Rho Ceta and the galaxy beyond. Whatever else the terrorists had hoped to accomplish, they had at least achieved one goal. No power in the universe could suppress their message now. But now someone else had modified the broadcast, parasitically substituting... this? But why?

Within the projection, the door of the room opened. Faint emergency lighting illuminated a drab-looking corridor beyond. Naismith was now clearly visible – or half of him was. The side of him that faced the invisible holoimager was fully mapped, but only that side. All in all, it was a truly bizarre effect. Still in his dress uniform and wearing all of his magpie medals, he seemed merely the hollow shell of a man.

His enormous Amazon bodyguard was dressed in the black fatigues of the Service, her silver hair cropped short. She ducked through the door first, scanning the hallway.

"Looks clear," she said quietly. "Which way?"

"Left," Naismith said, slipping past her. "Looks like the whole building's in primary lockdown. We'll need to get through some security doors. You did bring my intrusion kit, Taura?"

The sergeant nodded. A long backpack was slung diagonally across her back, easily as tall as Naismith.

"Aren't we going to be _seen_?" the invisible third woman said nervously. Laisa drew in a breath. It _was_ Fazliu!

Naismith didn't look back. "Depends."

"On what?"

"On whether I cut the right data conduits back there. I wouldn't worry too much about it, ma'am."

The ceilings of the Administration Dome underworks were too low for Naismith's bodyguard to stand upright, so she was forced to a crouching lope as she squeezed through. Naismith ignored the first labeled stairwell the small group passed, instead stopping at a location where the corridor roof was heavily reinforced by closely spaced pillars. He stared at a narrow side door before retrieving a small shoulderbag from his bodyguard's pack.

"I don't think we're going to be able to get out, Admiral," the sergeant said. "Not through four commando squads."

Naismith shrugged and half-grinned back at her. "We can take a _look_." He rooted one-handed through his bag for a mysterious device, pointed it at the small door's lock, and twitched it sideways in a semi-circle. The door clicked open, revealing a cramped chamber with a ladder going up. "But yeah, you're probably right." Flipping a large red switch beside the ladder, he hauled himself up and through an unlocked hatch.

"What's up there?" Fazliu asked. "Aren't we…trespassing?" She sounded very nervous.

"Freight lift." Naismith said, ignoring her other question. He came back into view as his companions climbed the ladder. "Watch the gravity." He reached a hand down to pull Fazliu up and tether her so that she wouldn't drift away.

The freight lift shaft was perhaps six meters by six meters. The walls were distant enough to be slightly out of focus, wavering a little in the projection. The shaft rose about five meters before a massive horizontal blast door sealed it off. Two meters off the ground, a pair of lift doors were set into one wall.

Naismith floated casually in the microgravity, anchoring himself one-handed on the last ladder rung. After Sergeant Taura hauled herself out of the hatch, he kicked off from the floor, reaching for another tool. Using a small hand-tractor to anchor himself to the wall, he pried the lift doors open with a few arcane mechanical manipulations. After the doors slid open a grudging half-meter, he grabbed one edge, pulled himself through, and vanished.

"Are you really a sergeant?" Fazliu asked Naismith's bodyguard, a bit nervously. "I thought you were a man, at first."

"Master sergeant, actually. I was the senior commando squad leader in the Dendarii fleet, but I decided to retire here and look after the li- the admiral."

"I meant a Barrayaran sergeant," the Komarran woman awkwardly clarified.

"I'm that too, yes." Taura tapped her collar insignia, "Imperial Security special operations, protective division." She looked a little amused. "Do you want my serial number?'

"I didn't realize they let women do things like that."

"They generally don't, but I insisted." Taura stretched in the microgravity, letting her large pack float up off her back. "None of their men can keep up with him anyway. His ImpSec tails are perennially useless."

"Have we heard from his detail?" Galeni asked a junior officer. He recieved a headshake in reply.

"But, I mean, is it a real role?" Fazliu asked. "Can you order soldiers around? Do they even listen to you?"

The sergeant smiled, showing the sharp pointed teeth in her wolflike muzzle. "They listen if they're smart. I've got more combat experience than any of them."

"Taura!" Naismith called from above.

"You'd better hang on," Taura said to Fazliu. Her startling yellow eyes were narrowed in concentration as she looked up at the lift doors.

"I am hanging on," Fazliu said uneasily.

"I mean to me. Grab my pack." Facing away from the imager, the sergeant pulled the hatch closed and leapt. The holoimage completely failed to integrate for a second. As it refocused Taura shoved a shoulder into the door opening and forced the doors wide. Beyond them was a corridor with yellow striping on all sides, warning of the variable gravity area. A featureless security door sealed off the corridor less than two meters from the lift doors.

Naismith could now be seen lying on his stomach on the alcove's ceiling, having cut himself an access hole. One knee was braced against the lift door frame, his shoulderbag's strap was looped twice around his neck, and his polished boots dangled downward. He sorted thoughtfully through a tangle of optic threads. "This could take a while," he said.

"Why are you – what are you – argh," Fazliu said, sounding more than a little nauseous in the free fall. "I suppose I shouldn't talk to you right now."

"This isn't actually all that hard. It's just very tedious." Naismith spared a quick glance downward. "Go on."

"Are you _insane_?"

He slowly blinked. Taura, crammed awkwardly into the alcove, chuckled lowly.

"How do you mean?" he said with a small smile.

"Halfway through the interview I was wondering if ImpSec was going to come and take me away. Three-quarters of the way through I was wondering if ImpSec was going to come and take _you_ away," she snarled up at him.

Naismith gave her an ominously psychotic little grin and murmured. "They can _try…_"

"And then you drag me into the basement for no good reason and start babbling about commando death squads…"

"He's not being paranoid," the tall sergeant said, craning her neck to look down. "The universe really is out to get him."

"Though not today, I guess," Naismith said. "No sign of pursuit, which is _bizarre_. I don't know who else in the building would rate four drop shuttles. It's overkill for a snatch and run."

"They're not running," Taura said grimly.

"True . But it's seriously underkill for a coup." Naismith's expression flattened as he severed another optic thread to splice in something sinister-looking from his toolkit. "I apologize, Dr. Fazliu, for, um, dragging you into my line of fire. I wasn't expecting…" he waved a temporarily free hand vaguely "this." He peered at a readout. "What the hell…?"

"Problems?" his bodyguard asked.

"The network is not responding normally at all."

"Do you think you've triggered something?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, this'll be tripping alarms all over the place at Cockroach Junior," Naismith said absently, upside-down. "That's not the issue, though. This is local, and it's _weird_." He glanced back at Fazliu and the holoimager. "It might be best if we left you down here. You'll certainly be safer behind the security doors."

She seemed wholly unconvinced. "What happens to me if you get yourself killed? What happens if the building burns down?"

"That's…unlikely," Naismith said. "The dome's almost certainly busted enough to smother a major blaze."

"_I_ remember the Equinox Hospital siege," she added coldly. Laisa, remembering too, swallowed.

The admiral winced. "I think…"

Her voice rose in a slightly hysterical shriek. "There's no food in here. There's no bathrooms in here. There's no _gravity_ in here! If ImpSec catches any Komarrans down here they throw them to their wolfhounds—"

"Who told you _that_?" he interrupted, bemused.

"—and you stole my comlink so nobody knows where I am!"

"If we're still alive in six hours you can go fish it out," Naismith said. He sounded tired. "Even though the walls are communication-shielded like crazy, there's interior pickups all through here and they can pinpoint transmission sources to within a centimeter. I'm not going to make their job easier."

"They're not going to be looking for _me_." Fazliu protested.

Naismith seemed amused. "If I were looking for me right now, I'd start with you," he said.

"How do I know you're _not_ working with these people?" she asked, her voice still high and sharp. "You're the mercenary. Maybe you're the one pulling a coup here."

The Admiral's brows suddenly drew down, and he stopped working a moment, "Do you have _any_ idea how much danger you're in…? No." His expression flattened. "I suppose not."

"…are you threatening me, Admiral?"

He rubbed a hand through his hair, which had fluffed out crazily in the gravity-free environs. "I don't think you realize how hazardous it is to be a civilian in my vicinity. I nearly got _Gregor Vorbarra_ spaced once." He hastily backtracked at Fazliu's unseen reaction. "Accidentally!"

"God, Miles, why did we _ever_ give you a security clearance?" Galeni grumbled.

"Is that true then?" Laisa asked. Her surprise was echoed by Fazliu on the vid, who sputtered "How do you _accidentally_ space the Emperor?"

The Admiral looked somewhat shifty. "He was standing next to me and thus, by Oser's logic, _clearly_ up to no good… I mean, I was going out the airlock too at that point."

"I don't know anything about this," Galeni said at Laisa's inquiring look. His brow creased.

"What was the Emperor doing with you in the first place?" Fazliu asked, baffled.

"Uh…" Naismith said, seeming to think briefly about the wisdom of continuing with the conversation. He shrugged. "Screwing in lightbulbs."

A baffled silence. "Is that…supposed to be some sort of euphemism?" Fazliu asked very carefully after a moment.

"No," he said, turning back to his work. After about four seconds, he paused, his brows snapped down and he dropped head-down in a free-floating spin from the ceiling to her eye level. Absolutely blindsided, his expression wavered between shock and outrage. "_No._"

Laisa watched this interplay with great interest. She'd always half-suspected a past affair between her husband and the galactic admiral. It would explain so much.

"I didn't mean to imply…" the Komarran woman said quickly. Naismith's open and friendly manner had shifted to hostile in the blink of an eye, and as he got in her face she scrambled a little closer to Taura. For someone his size he could be very intimidating when he wanted to be. Laisa could see some echoes of Count Vorkosigan in his body language now, although normally it would never have occurred to her to compare the two.

"_Yes you did_," Naismith growled.

"Your story still doesn't make any sense," she sputtered.

"Do you _normally_ go about accusing people of, of incestuous homosexual... carrying-on?" His anger was ebbing now, and he merely looked exasperated.

"I don't know, Miles," the sergeant put in. "You two would be kind of cute together, now that I think about it."

Naismith looked utterly betrayed. "Taura!" he yelped. Laisa started giggling despite herself.

"It wouldn't really be incest, would it?" the sergeant pondered.

"He's my foster brother by proxy and we're related about five or six other ways." His brow furrowed. "I suppose it wouldn't _technically_…" Breaking off, he stared at the pair of them. "How did we _ever_ get on this topic? God."

Sergeant Taura grinned quietly.

"I've sworn off dating my cousins in any case," Naismith growled at her. "No good can possibly come of it." With one last baleful look at Gita Fazliu, he dismissed the issue, launching himself back up to the ceiling.

"But what _was_ the Emperor doing with the lightbulbs?" Fazliu asked curiously.

"Tell you what, lady," Naismith said, immersed again in a sea of cables. "You ask _him_." He fiddled with a splice. "Nearly got it…" Finger poised on a button, he looked down. "Taura, you ready to go?"

"Any time," she said.

His eyes shifted towards the other woman. "Dr. Fazliu, if you step through that door with us, you will stay silent unless we talk to you, and you will follow our instructions to the letter. We're safe in here, but that's not going to be true out there. If you can't manage that, we will stun you and leave you somewhere. Do you understand?"

"I understand," she said tonelessly. Taura clipped a mystery device to her pack strap and adjusted it, unholstering a wicked-looking autoneedler.

"The door will close again in twenty seconds," Naismith said. "Go."

Taura twisted a knob on the device, erasing the noise of the door opening. She slipped through it with a grace out of proportion to her height, pulling Fazliu along with her. Naismith dropped through about five seconds later with a handful of electronics gear that he stowed once more in Taura's pack. The door slid shut behind them, and Naismith forged ahead.

The lighting on this floor was intermittent, apparently due to Naismith's manipulations. He led the three of them into an unlit stairwell, and they hurried up two floors. The admiral paused a few feet from a narrow window in the stairwell, peering out.

"Dead bodies in the plaza," he whispered, only half-audible past the noise-canceling.

The next level was fully lit, but Naismith strode on without hesitation. He didn't stop, not even when the lights flashed once and then kept flashing in an irregular pattern. His bodyguard slowed however, looking around. "_Miles_..." she mouthed, and turned down the sound canceller.

"I see it. But who?"

"It has to be a trap," Taura said uneasily. Her gaze flicked over every potential hiding place in sight, staring even at the ceiling and the floor as if they might hide enemies in ambush.

"Either way, we're nabbed," Naismith muttered. "Nowhere to run. Nowhere you two could follow, anyway." He flitted across the corridor as the lights flashed out again. The holoimager wasn't adjusting properly to the changes in illumination.

"What's happening?" Fazliu, this time.

"_Someone's_ thowing old Fleet signals at me. But who the hell…?" Another flash illuminated Naismith's pensive face, and then the patterns stopped, replaced by a traveling line of lights that illuminated an open side door near the end of the hall.

At the very edge of the vid-plate's projection, Naismith flattened himself quite effectively into a nearby doorframe. Taura's hand snapped up from her side, training her auto-needler on the far door with rock-steady aim.

In the tense silence that followed Laisa was startled by footsteps behind her. It was only Galeni again, however. Brow furrowed, the Chief of Komarran Affairs stared intently at the projection. The silence continued for many seconds.

"Sir?" Taura asked, risking a glance back. Fazliu's gaze followed hers, but the corridor behind them was just as empty.

"Oh, _screw it_," Naismith growled. "I want to know what's going on." Unpeeling himself from his makeshift shelter, he set off decisively down the corridor. Taura frowned and silently moved to shield him from forward fire, taking the first peek through the open door herself.

Only fragments of the room beyond could be seen past Taura as Fazliu approached. It contained four broad-shouldered men in brown and silver livery, all of whom looked extremely unhappy. A very young corporal in Imperial Security dress greens was also hovering nervously. His eyes went extremely wide at the sight of the enormous sergeant, and a hand covertly twitched in a warding gesture.

As Taura ducked inside and stopped blocking lines of sight, the room began to resolve itself on the vidplate. An apparently empty station chair faced a bank of monitors, half deactivated, half clearly malfunctioning. The faint drone of conversation came from one hidden screen.

"Hold on," a Barrayaran-accented voice ordered. The station chair swiveled, revealing a diminutive dark-haired man sitting cross-legged on it. There could of course be no question who he was. Frail and sharing his near-twin Naismith's peculiar deformities, Lord Auditor Piotr Vorkosigan was unmistakable. A chain of heavy gold links was wrapped around his left wrist and he held a seal bearing the Imperial arms.

"Oh," Naismith said from out of sight, sounding suddenly enlightened. "It's you." He stepped around Fazliu and into view, leaning against the doorframe.

"Who else?" Lord Vorkosigan asked, eyebrows rising.

Naismith's mouth twitched up in bleak humor. "I _was_ wondering if Quinn had suddenly decided to sack Komarr without telling me first... what the _hell_ is going on?"

All hint of levity disappeared from Vorkosigan's features. Unlike his terminally flippant younger brother, Count Vorkosigan's eldest son and heir could be forbiddingly reserved at times. "We have a… situation," he said.

"So I gathered. Hello Pym, Roic." Returning the ImpSec corporal's salute with an absent wave, Naismith brushed past the armsmen to peer over his brother's shoulder. As Fazliu entered the room Laisa made out Count Vorkosigan's low, slurred voice in the background.

Naismith stopped dead. "Oh god," he said in a choked voice, squinting at the small screen. "Is this the crusty old fogies of the Komarr Revolt _reunion tour_?"

"Belike," Lord Vorkosigan sighed. He waved a hand at one of the armsmen. "Close the door, please."

As Naismith took in the details, his grip on the back of his brother's chair tightened. "_Damn_," he finally said. "I suppose there's a reason these people aren't dead yet…?"

"Hostage situation on the top floors," Vorkosigan confirmed. "They were piping this out live to all Komarr until just now. They're in all the systems – I've been trying to keep them out, with little luck."

"Even with your override?" Naismith asked. He glanced at his brother, eyebrows rising.

"I have a _subordinate_ override, Miles," Lord Vorkosigan said quietly.

Naismith's brow furrowed. "No, you… oh _shit_. Gregor's _here_?"

Vorkosigan nodded curtly.

"What the hell's he doing on _Komarr_?"

"He's been here since last week." Vorkosigan looked extremely puzzled. "You didn't know?"

"I spent six days on a fast courier, just got downside this morning and went straight into interview prep," Naismith growled. "My security briefing never caught up with me." He squinted at his brother. "Come to think of it, what the hell are _you_ doing on Komarr?"

"I'm back from Eta Ceta, actually."

Naismith's eyebrows went up. "Oh?"

"The usual."

The admiral smirked. "Saving their empire?"

"Mm," Lord Vorkosigan said.

Naismith's brows shot up further. "What, _again_?" he asked, bright-eyed. "How many times has it been now?"

"Three or four…it depends how you count." Some of the half-listening ImpSec personnel in the control room turned to watch, startled.

Naismith grinned in malicious amusement. "You _really_ need a new hobby," he drawled. "Did they give you another medal?"

Vorkosigan made a neutral noise. Noticing that the ImpSec corporal was looking increasingly scandalized, Admiral Naismith reached up to clap him on the shoulder. "I get to twit my brother," he explained in a gentle tone. "It was specifically written in to my feudal submission to Gregor."

Lord Vorkosigan's expression was sphinxlike. "Sadly true."

Naismith looked up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed in thought. "Getting away from the total incompetence of _other_ peoples' Imperial Security, is it just me or has Galactic Affairs completely gone to shit since Tugalov retired? How the hell do you lose track of that many Komarrans at once?"

"I wouldn't complain about that sort of thing in public," Lord Vorkosigan said dryly. "It's a rear admiral's billet. They might draft _you_."

Galeni made a small choking noise. The admiral froze.

"But yes," Vorkosigan continued, "you're quite right."

"It was my impression that General Allegre wanted me nowhere _near_ his chain of command," Naismith said carefully. "I can't imagine Haroche would be too thrilled either."

"Well, they could swear at you from five jumppoints away, then." Lord Vorkosigan smirked, before relenting. "Relax. It hasn't been seriously suggested."

"Hmph. So where's the Empress? Given the circumstances, that's actually pretty important."

"Not here. She was this morning, though."

"What about the little prince?" Taura asked.

"With her. I think she was visiting family. I can't get external comms working, so…" Lord Vorkosigan shrugged. "Whatever ancient wide-spectrum jammer Ezar installed back in the day, it's extremely effective. Everything's snow except the holobroadcast, and that's so strong it's effectively jamming too. We're on our own."

"How deep are they in our network?" Naismith asked.

Vorkosigan rubbed his forehead. "They've got the Imperial Seal and a whole suite of infowarfare weapons. Not amateur work, either, these were _designed_ to cripple our systems. There's clearly a major government of some sort backing them. It's a _total_ mess. We'll have to wipe everything and start fresh, and by everything I mean most of Komarr. Fortunately, it's enough of a mess that they can't get too much done either."

"With this level of funding, someone's playing proxy war." Naismith said. "Obvious enough. But who?"

A shrug from Vorkosigan, who refused to speculate. "The only thing that's still working properly right now is their holobroadcast. I can't do anything about the jammer – that's Gregor's seal on it, and the networks are too flooded to detect and de-authorize its use. But I managed to cut off the external broadcast some time ago and restore normal programming." He waved his hand at the screen. "That's still going out on the internal network, so hopefully it'll take them some time to realize they're grandstanding to themselves."

"Heh," Naismith said, staring a moment more at the small screen. He shook his head in grim disgust. "And here I always thought old Lutang was the _least_ crazy of that family."

"Why is it important that you know where the Empress is?" Fazliu asked.

"Contingency plans for the Emperor's incapacitation," Vorkosigan said crisply. "To be blunt, who's in charge. Fortunately, Gregor has made his will known on the subject with crystal clarity."

"It would be crystal clear on Barrayar, anyway," Naismith put in with a frown.

"Quite," Lord Vorkosigan sighed. He rubbed his forehead again, looking suddenly very tired.

"The issue is that the general staff officers assigned to Komarr tend not to like Komarrans very much," Naismith said to Fazliu after a moment.

"Are you allowed to say that out loud?" she asked, sounding a little bemused.

"He's not really, no." Lord Vorkosigan's lip twisted. "It…does make the situation infinitely more complicated. It's quite possible the Empress has been captured or incapacitated too, we simply don't know. Even if she's free, if something's happened to the Prince…"

"Who's in charge if she's out of the picture?" Taura asked.

"At that point the Regency officially descends to me," Lord Vorkosigan said, "While I'd need to take oaths, my Auditorial authority would probably be sufficient to issue interim commands."

"You're next after him, I know that." the giant woman said, looking down at the Admiral.

Lord Vorkosigan looked very amused. Naismith cleared his throat and looked awkward.

"Oh dear God." Fazliu sounded appalled.

"Yeah," Naismith said.

"After that it's unstated, but it would normally default to Father," Lord Vorkosigan continued. "Much to his chagrin, I'm sure."

They all looked at the small screen briefly.

"And after that?" Taura asked

"Then," Lord Vorkosigan sighed, "it gets complicated."

"Screaming power vacuum," Naismith said gloomily. "If we all manage to get ourselves killed... Luck to Laisa out there, for sure." He looked at his brother. "We need to get _you_ out too."

"There are secret exits," Lord Vorkosigan said. "Unfortunately, we've compared notes here, and none of us actually know where they are. I don't suppose anybody told you?"

"Of course not." Naismith sounded irritated. "Nobody tells me anything in this army."

"The Count would know, and the Emperor, and likely certain of the Imperial armsmen and the more senior ImpSec staff," Pym said. "But I, personally, was never briefed."

"Nor I," Taura mused. "Seems like a serious oversight."

"We can't go out, certainly, and we can't stay here either. If I can get to a secure command comconsole, I should be able to run interference more effectively. What I'm doing here can be traced if they're not idiots. Fortunately, all the garbage they're dumped on the networks is obfuscating everything." Lord Vorkosigan cupped his chin in one hand and looked thoughtful. "We'll have to go up… and take our chances."


	5. Chapter 5

"Did you pretend it didn't matter  
Did you blame a few bad men  
Did you think your leaders wouldn't  
Just do it all again  
How far is it from here to Nuremberg?"  
-David Rovics, _How Far Is It From Here to Nuremberg_

Laisa looked up and caught Captain Galeni's eye.

"How soon are we going to have communications restored?" she asked. "Surely whoever designed this override didn't mean for it to cripple Barrayaran communications too?"

"As I understand it there are two issues," Duv said. "One is that the override is not coming from this building. The computers and master switches running this are likely located either under the office building Political Education took over, which was bulldozed thirty years ago, or in the Consulate itself. The second is that the current settings are locked with your husband's seal. If Lord Auditor Vorkosigan can't unlock it from there, I don't think we have a chance here. We're getting some progress on an orbital tightbeam relay, though."

The main holodisplay in ImpSec Komarr showed a cramped security post deep within the Barrayaran High Consulate of Komarr. On one of the small screens in the back of the security post Count Vorkosigan babbled on about the aftermath of the Conquest, mostly inaudible from Laisa's twice-removed vantage point. His two oldest sons half-blocked the screen as they had a low-voiced discussion.

Lord Vorkosigan sat crosslegged in a chair, his Auditor's chain wrapped around his wrist. Despite the aura of self-control he was projecting, tension was written in his face and behind his eyes. His brother Admiral Naismith seemed slightly more relaxed, but occasionally he betrayed an edge of chill fury. Naismith's silver-haired bodyguard Sergeant Taura crouched by the door, while a quartet of deeply upset Vorkosigan armsmen stood guard. A lone ImpSec corporal hovered nervously, trying to stay out of everyone's way.

And there was also another woman there, Laisa reminded herself. Invisible behind the hidden holocam, journalist Gita Fazliu was being very quiet, listening intently to a conversation far above her security clearance.

"What do you think is up there, Piotr?" Naismith asked. "Besides a lot of men with guns. Who's there, who's backing them? No way Moretti funded this by himself. Not even with Obis. Outside their price range."

"There's not _that_ many Komarrans," Lord Vorkosigan said. "Less than twenty, I'm guessing, and maybe three professional commando squads as backup in armor. I only got glimpses of the latter. No insignia."

"Special forces or freelancers?" Naismith asked.

"Could be either. The gear looked more merc, but I'm a little out of touch."

"Did you hear the autosniper earlier?" Taura asked. "It sounded like a Fel make to me."

"Mm. I'll point out that this is _not_ the sort of operation people use their own drop shuttles for," Naismith said.

"It's not the Cetas," Lord Vorkosigan said.

"Yes, I was about to say. Nuovos?"

"Might be. The possibilities are endless, actually." Lord Vorkosigan pinched his nose. "I just had a nightmarish thought. This does seem like the sort of thing that would appeal to the late, unlamented Commander Cavilo…"

"Oh, God, I hope not," Naismith muttered. "Isn't she dead? Somebody made sure she was actually dead, right, and not just faking? Stake through the heart and a garlic necklace at _minimum_…"

"That's what I'm wondering. Hmm. You _are_ sure you got Ryoval once and for all?"

"Yes," Sergeant Taura said.

"What've we got for weapons?" Naismith asked.

"Oh, lots," Taura said, shrugging off her pack. Laisa was surprised by the variety of deadly technological devices she set on the side table. With a nod from Lord Vorkosigan, the other men in the room also laid out their private arsenals. Taura's collection was by far the largest and most exotic, while Lord Vorkosigan contributed merely a small, well-concealed stunner. Naismith glanced at Fazliu and quirked an eyebrow until she reluctantly surrendered her own elegantly designed stunner to him. He turned it over in his hands, checked the power pack, and handed it back to her with a nod.

"So it looks like the only one not carrying is _you_, Miles," Vorkosigan noted. "How the hell did that happen?"

"I was _recording an interview_," the admiral said through his teeth.

Lord Vorkosigan frowned down at the gathered weaponry. Naismith's bodyguard was finishing the assembly of a large and menacing weapon that seemed to be built exactly to her scale. "Not much to stage a counter-coup with," he said.

"Well, we have Taura's elephant gun," Naismith's lip twisted.

"But nothing else resembling heavy weaponry," Vorkosigan said with another frown. "And no real armor." He glanced at the guard. "The ImpSec low-profile you have under there might blunt a stunner or civilian weapon but won't stop serious fire."

"The really irritating thing is that I _brought_ mine and Taura's space armor, but I left it in orbit," Naismith grumbled. "I seem to be getting insufficiently paranoid in my old age."

"I can't believe you smuggled all that past ImpSec as it is," Vorkosigan said, shaking his head.

"I have permits!"

"For _needle grenades_?" The Auditor picked up a tiny round device Laisa didn't recognize. "_This_ is cute, though." He tossed it at Roic.

"Share and enjoy," Admiral Naismith said, waving a hand. The arsenal was duly divided. The armsmen got the best picks, while Taura retained a couple of her larger weapons. Naismith chose a needler clearly built to his personal specifications and also took a similarly-scaled nerve disruptor Lord Vorkosigan turned down.

"Just the stunner?" Naismith asked.

"Let's consider me a civilian for the duration," Lord Vorkosigan said neutrally. He stared into space. "My aim's not good enough these days."

A hint of embarrassment from Naismith. "Ah."

Lord Vorkosigan's attention finally fixed on the woman behind the holocam. "Who's your friend, Miles?"

"Uh, this is Dr. Gita Fazliu," Naismith said. "She's the program host for _Interstellar Exchange_. We sort of got interrupted mid-interview." He glanced sideways. "Gita, this is Lord Auditor Piotr Vorkosigan, my brother."

"She does have security and loyalty oaths on file?"

"I'd imagine so," the admiral said uneasily.

The effect of Vorkosigan's continued stare at Fazliu was extremely unnerving, Laisa thought. "Do you have any military or paramilitary training?" he asked her.

"Um, no, my Lord Auditor."

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"No!" Fazliu said, shocked.

"Have you ever seen someone die or handled a dead body?"

"Look, what's this about?" she asked plaintively.

Vorkosigan glanced sideways at Naismith, lip twitching upwards. "My God," he said, "an innocent bystander."

"That's not funny," Naismith said.

"Right," Vorkosigan said. "You should stay… well, not _here_. Hmm."

"I've tried to ditch her already with no success," Naismith said. "She seems to think her chances of being shot by Barrayarans alone is higher than her chances of being shot by Komarran terrorists with us."

"If you stand somewhere brightly lit and look as civilian as possible, you'll probably be fine," Lord Vorkosigan remarked.

"You think?" Naismith sounded ever-so-slightly dubious.

Vorkosigan began to answer, but his attention was suddenly distracted by the voices from the display behind him. Naismith's eyes also widened and he moved closer to his brother and the screen. Curiously, the Count's voice got louder as he did so, as if somebody had suddenly turned the volume up.

"_Oh, Bothari. He was just some bastard enlisted kid out of the Caravenserai with a _very_ large cock._" Only now that the rest of the room was nearly silent could Laisa decipher Count Vorkosigan's accent, which had become increasingly impenetrable as the minutes wore on. Drool oozed from his open mouth now, bubbles of spittle appearing as he spoke. "_The proverbial Indian changeling, heh. I didn't like what Ges was doing to him. The drugs. If they were just screwing each other I wouldn't have cared, but Ges liked to _watch_._"

"_Admiral Vorrutyer liked to watch this Bothari man rape his prisoners,_" Albescu prompted. Count Vorkosigan nodded vigorously.

"Are you sure you want to hear this, Empress?" Galeni asked. Some of the ImpSec men in the room were looking uncomfortable. Neither of the Vorkosigan brothers looked surprised, just grim.

"_And you were also sleeping with Vorrutyer._"

"_I wasn't at the time._" The Count looked blurrily indignant. "_He used to like to watch me fuck his sister._"

"_You were having sex with Admiral Vorrutyer _and_ his sister?_" Albescu sputtered.

"_Not at once! God. One at a time was more than I could handle. My wife was long dead by then, and I hadn't gotten drunk enough to go out with Ges in many years. He'd fallen into the Prince's orbit, anyway, and everyone knew what was going on there. Even Vorhalas eventually figured it out._"

"Can you explain what was going on there that everyone knew?"

Vorkosigan gave a low snort. "_Sex for power. Serg fucking him, of course - Ges never had any objection to playing the woman's part. Though it wasn't really a preference thing, more a social rank thing. He knelt for me too. Most of the time._" The Komarrans were looking morbidly fascinated, but Dubauer seemed bored.

"I'm beginning to understand why Father warned me so ferociously off Lady Donna." Naismith mentioned, sounding a little strangled.

"Two wings away and a floor down was not _nearly_ far enough away from you two, yes," Lord Vorkosigan said, eyes still grimly fixed to the screen.

"Oh, were we keeping you up, Piotr?" Naismith asked with a needlelike grin.

"The _arguments_, mostly," the Lord Auditor said in a dignified fashion. He seemed relieved to have a distraction from his father's overly-candid testimony.

"Yeah, I should have listened to him. What she really needed was someone easily terrorized she could show off in public."

Lord Vorkosigan barely choked down a laugh. "Haven't you heard? Well, never mind…" His amusement was very brief.

"_In the fleet, there was an unclean silence about it all,_" Count Vorkosigan continued. "_If Vorrutyer wanted a woman for his games, he had her. There were others who were never touched, though, who knows why one and not the other? Some stayed on the ships, some were sent to the camps. The camps in a way were worse. More banal atrocities. A couple of women died there._"

"_Did you yourself rape any prisoners, Admiral Vorkosigan?_"

"_No,_" he whispered.

"_When did you find out this sort of abuse was going on?_"

"_I guessed it from the start,_" he said, "_but I was away from the flagship often enough… I was in denial. My quarters were across from Vorrutyer's, so it eventually became impossible to ignore. There was one evening where a young lady was being dragged in - I intervened, asking Vorrutyer what he thought he was doing. We ended up having dinner, the four of us – Vorrutyer, and I and Illyan and the terrified girl. A vicious pretense. The way she flinched at Bothari – I knew._" His face twisted in a slack grimace. "_I did insist on escorting her back to the cells. The next morning his door was ajar and she was screaming._"

"_Simon Illyan was there?_" Albescu asked alertly. The Komarrans in the room all showed some reaction to the name, hatred the most prominent.

"_He wasn't with Vorrutyer, he was with me,_" Vorkosigan explained.

"_Were you sleeping with him too_?" A sneer.

"_No, unfortunately. It wouldn't have been appropriate. He was my spy. His duty was to watch my every move for Ezar and make sure I didn't do anything idiotic like assassinate my superior officers. I was very close, that morning. I went back for my plasma arc, but Simon talked me down._"

"_Unlike the Komarr invasion, I understand you were not initially in charge of the Escobar invasion," Dubauer said. "Can you tell us about the chain of command and what your particular responsibilities were?_"

"_The Prince and Vice-Admiral Vorrutyer were co-commanders. Rulf Vorhalas was under them. I was next in seniority, a commodore again after a few years spent at captain. It wasn't any secret I thought the whole thing was a terrible idea, so I was assigned to keep the contingency plans updated._"

"_Were you involved with the discussions about going to war in Escobar?_" Obis asked.

"_Yes,_" Vorkosigan said. "_Just about all of them except the war faction's internal meetings. As a cadet member of the Counts with relevant experience I was permitted to attend the joint sessions._"

"_Did the subject of interstellar law ever come up in these discussions?_" Dubauer again.

"_Functionally, the government has never cared about that sort of thing,_" Vorkosigan explained. "_The Emperor willed it, so it was done._"

"Who _is_ that Betan woman and what's she doing here?" Naismith asked his brother under his breath.

"I'm not sure myself," Lord Vorkosigan replied in equally hushed tones. "I've heard the name. I think she might be Moretti's lover."

"Is he over his dead wife then?" the admiral whispered back.

"Signs point to no..."

"_So the choice to wage illegal war against Escobar was Ezar Vorbarra's?_" Moretti asked.

"Taura, why don't you take Dr. Fazliu across the hall a moment," Lord Vorkosigan said, suddenly mindful of his brother's guest. He pointed at the corporal. "You go with them."

Count Vorkosigan seemed to be writhing internally beneath his induced slack-jawed idiocy, and his answer was longer in coming than normal. His body language was changing too, as if he was shrinking away from something he did not want to face. Fazliu turned away and the room vanished. "_The war party and the Prince wanted it. Ezar wanted to let them try._"

"_Yes, about Prince Serg,_" Obis said. Despite Fazliu's departure, his voice was still clearly audible. "_Reports from Escobaran prisoners of war indicate that he had a taste for torturing and raping pregnant female prisoners._"

"_Yes, that's true._" Weirdly, the Count seemed calmer now. Laisa flinched at his words. She'd known the grandfather of her children had mental issues, as Gregor had talked in circles around the subject at length. He had absolutely insisted on the strictest of gene-cleaning regimens for Casimir and his younger, still-gestating brother. But to have it out so baldly…

Galeni looked like he was suppressing a string of swears. "Naismith's still wearing his mike from the interview. _Unforgivably_ sloppy."

The visual portion of the vid now showed the room Fazliu was in across the hall, but the audio feed was extremely muddled. The holojournalist was asking Taura a question, but at the same time Naismith and Vorkosigan were having an intense discussion over the sound of Count Vorkosigan's interrogation. Their voices all merged into an impenetrable jangle.

As Taura answered the Komarran woman, one of the brothers yelped "What!" Laisa initially thought it was Naismith, then realized it had to have been his brother the Auditor.

"Oh, _shit_." Naismith said. The Komarran interrogators were also talking over each other in the background. Moretti finally won out.

"_The entire war against Escobar was waged so that the Emperor could kill _his son?"

"_Yes. Essentially. There was no murder involved, he was perfectly capable of getting himself killed. I hardly needed to provide a nudge. If he had been a better leader, he would still have not left the system alive. If he had been a better man…the situation would have never come up._"

"_So you betrayed ten thousand people to their deaths to kill _one man?" Obis sounded legitimately shocked. Somebody in the room with Laisa swore in French.

"_It was somewhat more than that, counting the Escobarans. The fleet was also disproportionally loaded with officers who were his political allies. Vorrutyer, others. Vorhalas and I were there to ride herd, though Rulf knew nothing. I did try to save him, but…_" Vorkosigan sighed. "_I'm death to that family, and it's not on purpose. Not since the first time._" His voice became a little more cheerful. "_It was less ugly than I expected. My initial projections were twenty-three thousand Barrayaran dead, we actually only lost about sixty-one hundred dead and missing. The extraction was relatively painless, mostly because Vorrutyer wasn't running..."_

"Did you know about this?" Laisa whispered to Galeni.

Galeni shook his head violently. "I never suspected. I'm not sure your husband even realizes. My God. He's been sitting on this for more than _thirty years_."

"All for nothing," she breathed.

"Once upon a time, this alone would have brought down the Imperium," Galeni said. "Even now, it will destroy him."

She wasn't sure she quite grasped the magnitude of what had just been revealed yet. The more she thought about it, the more her heart dropped. "I see now what you meant earlier. The Massacre is the least of it, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry if this is rude, but… just how tall are you?" Fazliu's voice cut in over Admiral Vorkosigan's words.

"It's not the first time I've been asked that, trust me. Two meters, forty-four centimeters," Taura said. She stretched, horizontally. "Taller in these boots."

"_…a strategist, but never a tactician,_" the Count continued, his voice fading out.

"Ceilings must be a bit of an issue," the holojournalist said blankly.

"I've learned to appreciate fascist-scale architecture. Komarr's a little cramped for me."

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Fazliu asked in a hushed tone after another moment .

Laisa could barely make out the Count's voice in the background. "_He knew he could ask it of me, because I had known Yuri…"_

"Miles sometimes gets… distracted," Taura said. "We really need to get moving." Rising, she slipped out the door, leaving Fazliu with the silent, spooked ImpSec corporal. His name badge read MIZIROV, B. and his undress greens were neatly pressed. He fingered one of his Horus-eye badges nervously and said nothing. The Komarran woman gingerly walked past him to peek out into the hall. It was still empty.

Count Vorkosigan's quiet voice was audible once more, over the total silence in the security post and ImpSec Komarr. "_The paranoia of our rulers – it's the paranoia of exquisite vulnerability. Serg tried to assassinate his dying father twice in ten months. He was that sort of man. Not the leader Yuri was, though. Men would _follow_ Yuri, through death and terror. He was the most hunted man on Barrayar during the Occupation…_"

"_So the current Emperor of Barrayar – his father was a psychotic sex criminal, his grandfather was a mass murderer, his, uh, father's uncle was a paranoid evil dictator,_" Obis said. "_How crazy is _he?"

"_Gregor? Gregor's a good kid,_" Count Vorkosigan said distantly. "_Always surprised me, that._"

The door between the hall and the security post opened again. Laisa was surprised at how quietly Taura could move when she wanted to. Through the door, the brothers were partially visible again.

"_Miles certainly ended up with more than his share of crazy,_" the Count added.

"Hey now," Naismith muttered. He looked deeply shaken. The armsmen were uneasy too, some shocked, some introspective. Only Pym remained unruffled. Lord Vorkosigan was, as usual, impossible to read.

A quiet chuckle from Taura. "We should be moving, sir."

"Yes," the Auditor said distantly. "Quite." His eyes widened. "_Oh._" Albescu was asking another question, but Laisa was too distracted to make it out.

"What now?" Naismith asked.

"This is still going out on the internal network. I was wondering if they were showing this to the hostages, and I realized that I urgently need to check on something." Lord Vorkosigan consulted a side screen. "I may have made a critical error. Also..." he winced at what the screen told him.

"Have they started tracing?"

"Yes. We need to move now." He looked out at Fazliu as he reached the door. His eyes narrowed in disapproval. "You too. Come on."

"If they've got chemical sniffers this is going to be a real short trip," Naismith commented in a low voice. "Where are we going?"

Lord Vorkosigan hobbled along at a fair pace, his cane clicking on the floor. None of his companions offered to assist him. "Third floor, guest quarters. We're in better shape than you'd think. They half-trashed the internal security monitoring going in and I finished the job after I spotted you down here. We can even use the lift-tubes."

Taura took point in their little group, with Naismith and Pym trailing her. Another two Vorkosigan armsmen flanked Fazliu and the Auditor protectively, while the corporal and the remaining armsman invisibly brought up the rear. Lord Vorkosigan unlocked a sealed nearby lift tube and stepped aside politely to let the sergeant eel up it first.

"Milady," Galeni said. "There's a call for you. It's Rathjens."

"For me?" she asked, surprised. Galeni looked grim. He nodded. With a glance around the room, she stepped to the secure comconsole and activated the cone.

"I see the orbital relay's working," she said. "What's the situation?"

General Rathjens was deeply agitated. "Milady, I thought I should tell you as well. Admiral Lord Vorventa was just here, with several platoons of his men."

She drew in a breath. "Have we engaged with the terrorists then?"

"No. He spoke to General Laisner and Colonel Eliopoulos. All three of them are now on their way to your location, with Vorventa's marines. Vorventa does not approve of your handling of the situation."

Her eyes widened. "I would have thought he'd send his men in after Count Vorkosigan," she said.

Rathjens hesitated. "This is no longer about Count Vorkosigan, if it ever was. It is my duty to watch your back, Milady."

"How close are you to mounting a rescue mission?"

"It won't be soon. The best hostage team has gone with Eliopoulos."

"I see," she said, inwardly furious. "Thank you, General."

Her thoughts raced as she switched off the cone, turning to look at Galeni. He was already issuing orders to a fully armored ImpSec squad. Her armsmen were listening intently.

"I want Vorventa relieved of command," she said. "He's deserted his post."

Galeni nodded. "Rathjens apprised me. Milady, this building isn't built like the headquarters in Vorbarr Sultana. We're underground, but if we're besieged by men in armor with air support, we won't be able to hold out. Our one advantage is that they do not know where the prince is. With your permission, I'd like to move him to another safe house, so they cannot fast-penta you for his location."

Laisa thought about it. She smiled humorlessly. "I think that if we reach that point, we've already lost, Commodore." She was _not_ about to let Galeni disappear Casimir. Right now she didn't want to worry about whether her little boy was safe in whatever other secret hideout Galeni might choose on top of everything else. Barrayar seemed to view her as wholly peripheral to his upbringing as it was.

A glance at the holovid, now displaying a featureless corridor that meant nothing to her. Her brow furrowed in a sudden frown. "Gere, I want you to go up to the entrance. Be visible, and remind them of who exactly they are moving against. You may let the admiral and the general in, without escort. I will agree to speak with them only on my terms."

Gere looked at her thoughtfully, and Laisa was reminded that as an Imperial armsman he took orders from nobody here – not her, not even Galeni. She hadn't stopped to think of what her armsmen thought of all this. They were all ex-military men. Did they secretly agree with Vorventa? Laisa knew that a few of Gregor's more senior armsmen quietly disapproved of her. But Gere just nodded.

"That may help," Galeni said. "If they don't obey, it's clear treason, which expands our options significantly. We've uncovered some body armor that might fit you, if it comes to an assault…"

She shook her head. "If I'm going to speak to them, I don't want it to be in badly fitting military gear. It won't impress them. I am their Empress. That's all that should be required."

"As you wish," he said. He didn't look pleased.

"Do get me a nerve disruptor and holster, though," she said pleasantly.

Commodore Galeni's eyebrows went up and he gave her a short bow. As his head rose, his attention was completely arrested by the vid display.

Laisa turned and froze. She could _feel_ a ripple of instinctual hatred run through the room. Raised on the myths of the occupiers, her reaction to the green-and-gold painted ghem warrior was no less intense than theirs.

The Cetagandan was half-hidden behind a door frame, but his plasma arc was clearly visible. Equally clearly, it was pointed squarely at Lord Vorkosigan's head. The Auditor looked up – and smiled.


	6. Chapter 6

"Paranoia strikes deep  
Into your life it will creep  
It starts when you're always afraid  
Step out of line, the man come and take you away"  
-Buffalo Springfield, _For What It's Worth_

"We have to talk," Lord Vorkosigan said, lidding his eyes. "May I enter?"

"As this is currently a diplomatic residence, I am under no legal obligation to let you in," the Cetagandan replied, though he holstered his plasma arc. His eyes slid off Vorkosigan to stare nervously at Taura, who was looking even more threatening than usual.

"Have people been giving you trouble, ghem-General?" the Auditor asked solicitously. "There's been a bit of a security breach."

The ghem-officer nearly laughed. "Some unpleasant and heavily armed individuals stopped by, but happily decided not to needlessly provoke my government."

"Ah? Hmm. I don't suppose you could identify them further?" Vorkosigan asked without much hope.

As he spoke, Admiral Naismith stepped out from around Taura. His posture was straighter than it usually was, and his body language was somehow vastly different. He seemed closed and hostile, like an emotionless predator.

"They seemed to be a similar breed to the lowlifes your degenerate brother once commanded," the general said. Benin, right, she'd met him at the wedding. Gregor had been growling about unspecified Cetagandans at breakfast, but she hadn't realized the ghem-general was back in the Imperium. Benin was watching Naismith now, a curious lift to his painted brow. Tapping one finger to the side of his lip, he frowned and pointed to Taura. "_She_ stays in the hall. The rest of you may come in."

Naismith and Taura exchanged a glance. After the rest of the group tromped inside, the admiral finally stepped through the door, leaving his bodyguard behind.

"You seem to have switched uniforms since last we met, Admiral Naismith," the Cetagandan noted.

"That's not actually true," Naismith said, and his Betan accent was _gone_. "We ended up getting a double brain transplant to confuse the issue further." Lord Vorkosigan relaxed into an uninvited sprawl on Benin's couch behind the ghem-general's back. He started grinning.

Laisa closed her eyes, but when she opened them in she was just as disoriented as before. With another tiny shift in body language, each brother fully seemed to be the other. Naismith's Barrayaran accent was the least of it. If their objective was to put the ghem-general off balance, it was working brilliantly. The effect was _extraordinarily_ creepy.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" the brother in the admiral's uniform asked. "By the paint, it doesn't seem to be… official business." He traced a set of invisible stripes across his own face with the fingers of one hand, approximating the Imperial pattern that Benin wasn't wearing.

"He's assigned to their embassy as the new military attaché." The Auditor's accent didn't actually change, but his intonation was pure Naismith. Laisa was so used to identifying the brothers by accent and attitude that she had sudden difficulty remembering which one he was supposed to be. "It would be impolite to point out how completely overqualified for the post he is, so don't."

"How strange." The other brother considered Benin. "You're not defecting, are you?" he asked suddenly.

Even under the face-paint, the ghem-general's revulsion to the concept was clear. "Some loyalties cannot be sold… Admiral."

Naismith gave him a terribly Barrayaran little bow. His eyes gleamed in amusement.

"But it's interesting to see you here, Lord Vorkosigan, on such a historic morning." The ghem-General continued, walking over to where the other brother had seated himself. "You seem to be the prince-candidate of the moment, your competition…" he made a little gesture, "swept away."

Both brothers bristled violently. Benin smirked.

"I'm no _prince_, Dag," the Auditor said coldly, recovering his composure.

"But your illustrious father has said as much, just now," the ghem-General said, raising an eyebrow. "Surely your status does not change, even if you unwisely choose not to play the game."

The large vid screen in Benin's main room was indeed showing the trial. Count Vorkosigan's head lolled forward, and drool trailed from his mouth. "_Ges managed to get himself killed first, but I've certainly murdered other men. The first was Yuri, I suppose, though my father actually slew him. Ezar had the last cut, but he was dead by then._"

"Emperor Vorbarra is my father's foster-son," Lord Vorkosigan said tightly. "He is my _brother_. That is not a relationship I will _ever_ betray."

"_This was the Dismemberment of Emperor Yuri?_" Albescu asked.

"_Well, we could hardly dismember him twice_," Vorkosigan's father said. "_All of us had to be equally guilty, every Count or his heir. Even old Xav took a slice. Barely a papercut, but Xav was never keen on torture. I had a uniform then, you know. Me, thirteen, gawky. Yuri laughed at it. I still have it, somewhere. I was saving it to give to Miles, but he never grew into it._"

"I suppose I must concede the point." Benin said with a faint smirk, though it was clear he felt he'd proved it. What was the brother of an Emperor, if not a prince? Laisa had never had any illusions about where the Emperor's foster family stood in the grand hierarchy of things.

"You must be the famous Admiral Naismith," a woman's voice said. Her Cetagandan accent was more refined than even the ghem-General's, her alto voice bell-clear. Naismith's eyes narrowed as she appeared in an interior doorway.

Vorkosigan showed no surprise, and his personal armsman Roic merely looked blankly professional. The effect on the other men, though, was marked. The woman in the doorway was extraordinary beautiful, something which came across in full even through the imperfect vid projection. She had a completely symmetric face, with a high forehead and sharp Cetagandan features that instantly drew the eye, and her skin tone was unnaturally even, with a peculiar luster like oiled dark walnut.

Laisa had never seen a haut-lady outside her bubble before. She had no doubt whatsoever that this was one.

"An unexpected pleasure, Lady…" Naismith looked sidelong at the ghem-lord. "d'Benin?" he hazarded.

The ghem-general's expression remained very neutral indeed. "No."

Naismith frowned. His eyes narrowed again, at his brother this time.

"This is the haut Beiru Degtiar, Miles." The Auditor's voice was neutral too.

Naismith blinked at her. He turned back to his brother, boggled. "You're not bringing her home to _Mother_, are you?"

"It's complicated." he said flatly. "The short answer is no."

"_Of course I didn't kill my wife!_" the Count exclaimed in the background, agitated and babbling. "_Do I look like I go around shooting women for fun?_"

The haut-lady's hair was dark brown in color, nearly black. Some of it hung in tight spiral curls about her face, but the rest dropped in wavy wisps and braids all the way to the floor. Her sharp black eyes raked over Admiral Naismith. "Curious. In the Celestial Domain we do not have," her mouth moved around the foreign word, "twins. Does it bother you, that you are not unique?"

Naismith looked up at her. She was a very tall woman, about half a meter taller than him and perhaps half a meter shorter than the absent Sergeant Taura. "Uh," he said.

"_I killed two men in duels over her, though, in the last days,_" Count Vorkosigan continued in the background. "_Lexi Vorhalas and… I can never remember his name, one of the Vorgustafsons._"

Naismith's head jerked towards the vid. "You are _shitting_ me," he hissed out, now completely distracted. Lord Vorkosigan's brow furrowed. He silently stood and walked to the vid-screen controls, using his seal to disable the screen with a few short movements.

"I'll be filing a protest over that, Vorkosigan," Benin said sharply. "You don't have free run of these apartments."

"Your tenure here is at the pleasure of the Emperor, and you were _supposed_ to have left by now for your ship out," the Auditor said. "I'm not going to tolerate espionage."

"You're beaming this into space on the public networks," the ghem-General said with a pained look. "You can't seriously think you can suppress it."

"We're not, actually," Vorkosigan said. "I'm going to insist that you turn over your personal recording of this now. I suggest you not argue about it. You can file what protests you please at a later date."

Galeni winced.

"I am, as you well know, a diplomatic emissary of my Celestial Master," Benin said. "My possessions are inviolate, and an assault on me is an assault on him."

Vorkosigan's lip twisted up in a tiny smile. While the ghem-General was distracted, Naismith drifted over to the vid-display's side table. Just before he could grab the innocent-looking data-organizer interfacing with the vid there, Benin's hand slammed down on it.

"You _are_ a little thief, aren't you," the ghem-General said to Naismith with contempt. The admiral looked utterly unrepentant.

"Your Emperor is irrelevant," Vorkosigan said. He ambled back to the couch, deliberately staying in Benin's blind spot. "After all, we know who you are." He caught Naismith's eye, and Naismith suddenly grinned.

Benin looked disgusted. "Not this again," he said.

The haut-woman watched this interplay with curiosity, ignoring the stares she was still getting from the armsmen. A short androgynous individual with feathery black hair and a unibrow flitted to her side and then out of sight again.

"Your father was a war bastard in Vorkosigan Vashnoi," Naismith said. "We've established this. By traditional Barrayaran law, a foreign bastard is wholly outlaw. Not a subject, not deserving of protection."

"Your forces left us with quite a plague of ghem-bastards," Vorkosigan added. "The only difference between your father's blood and theirs is that your grandfather took him home." Benin showed no reaction, and his eyes did not leave Naismith for a second.

"That's why Xav wrote the Bastard Law," Naismith said. His accent was more ambiguous now, but still closer to Barrayaran than Betan. "Every child of an unmarried Barrayaran mother born on Barrayar during the war was ordained to be Dorca's subject. And your grandmother, well, wasn't. Married, I mean."

"Even if she secretly was, it would have been polygamous, and we don't recognize that," Vorkosigan added.

"He wasn't Vor," Naismith smirked. "He was stealing her honor."

"And you yourself are your father's legitimate son," Vorkosigan said. "You have inherited his legacy"

"More critically, you've inherited his liege-status, which _completely torpedos_ any possible claim you might have for diplomatic immunity here in the Imperium," Naismith was grinning now.

"That's _ridiculous_," Benin said.

"This would all have been fairly trivial to sort out at an embassy, Dag. Your father never did. And as of noon yesterday, which was the last time I checked, neither have you." Vorkosigan's eyes flashed. "Unfortunate, that. For you, I mean."

"This is when we start talking about espionage again," Naismith said.

"Service in the armed forces of a foreign power," Vorkosigan added, leaning against a wall. The tiny smile was back on his face.

"In short," Naismith finished, "all _sorts_ of treason." He grinned.

The ghem-general's hand drifted down to his plasma arc. Seeing his opening, Naismith swiped the data organizer in the blink of an eye.

Benin snarled under his breath. Both brothers looked very pleased with themselves.

"You're under house arrest, Dag," Vorkosigan said briskly. "Understand I'm being lenient. You can plead your case to Gregor later."

"Of course, if you want to tag along with us and be helpful, that'd work too." Naismith said with sunny cheer. His eyes gleamed. "You might even get a medal. If you're good."

"I have a responsibility to ensure the haut Beiru's safety," Benin said coldly.

"_She_ could come along…" Vorkosigan mused, suddenly _very_ Naismith.

Benin looked appalled at the thought. Beiru looked… intrigued.

"My mother was right about you, Lord Vorkosigan," she said. "You do things differently."

"Yes," he said.

"It is interesting to watch. But I think I must decline your offer."

Vorkosigan bowed. "Until later, then." His brother Naismith ambled out the door, giving Benin one last sharklike grin. The ghem-General watched them leave in cold dislike.

The Auditor wasn't even halfway done sealing the door when his brother leveled an unamused look his way. "Okay, spill."

"It's not really your business."

"Like hell it isn't. Are you marrying that woman or not?"

"Fletchir and I had an argument about that," Vorkosigan growled. "I won. Sort of."

"If you won, what's she doing here?"

The Auditor sighed. "Beiru's in an interesting situation... she's Pel's daughter, I should mention."

Naismith looked baffled. "But Pel's… and she's… How does _that_ work?"

"They're haut," Vorkosigan snarled. "Don't think about it too hard. In any case, all of the women of Pel's generation were planning for a future that never came about. And they have a, hmm, excess of ambitious and talented daughters about Beiru's age. Like Rian."

"Ah." Naismith sounded enlightened. "And Fletchir can't marry them all, right, got it. Go on..."

"Why don't we go back to talking about you and Lady Donna?" Vorkosigan said through his teeth.

"Piotr doesn't really have a love life," Naismith explained to Fazliu. "He amuses himself by pointedly not dating the landscaper. So this is new."

A flash of utter rage from Lord Vorkosigan. Taura's brows lifted.

"But seriously, Piotr," Naismith said, and he looked deadly serious now, "you have to be following my train of thought here. Giaja has an excess of future Empresses – so he drops one on _you_?"

"It was my bad luck to be single, I suppose," Vorkosigan said.

Naismith's eyes narrowed and he put one hand on his hip. "You heard Benin's talk about prince-candidates. Think like a Cetagandan here. Fletchir Giaja backstabbed half his male relatives for power before he was thirty." He waved an arm in the vague direction of the Komarran terrorists, "What if all this is some arcane hautish idea of a _favor_?"

The Lord Auditor blinked. "What an appalling thought," he breathed.

"Isn't it," his brother said.

"I don't think you're right, but…" Vorkosigan shook his head, looking greatly disturbed.

Naismith glanced at Fazliu, then said something scathing in Russian to his brother that Laisa couldn't make out.

As the group got moving, the brothers dropped back to well behind the zone covered by Taura's sound-canceling gear to continue their heated but incomprehensible discussion.

"What are they saying?" she whispered to Galeni.

"I have no idea," he said.

"I thought you spoke Russian?"

"I can _read_ Standardized Russian," Galeni said. "What _he_ speaks is some bastard anglicized Dendarii hill dialect that's only still around because the Cetagandans tried to ban it. Do you know why they tried to ban it? Their autotranslators couldn't cope. Even if I could decipher the dialect, I don't have half the context, they're talking over each other, and Naismith's using Betan vowels on top of that."

The sound of a weapon going off, muffled strangely, echoed over the vid. Somebody shoved Fazliu to the ground, which obscured most of what was going on from the holovid pickups. There was a brief, chaotic array of sounds, and a loud thud. Within three seconds all weapon fire had stopped. Naismith, crouching nearby, stood and rushed forward, while Lord Vorkosigan leaned on his cane and gave Fazliu a hand up.

As she stood, it became clear that whoever they'd run into around the corridor hadn't had time to know what hit them. Three bodies, all looking dead to varying degrees, sprawled out. Taura was crouched over another, one of her knees pinning him to the floor. She held one clawed hand over his mouth and frisked him for weapons with the other.

"Oh, interesting. _Not_ mercs, these men." Naismith said. The sergeant's captive looked Komarran. Like the men who had been guarding Count Vorkosigan, he was only lightly armored, and was wearing a formal suit. "Well done, Taura."

"Yes, excellent work," Lord Vorkosigan said. He reached into a suit pocket for a small data case. "Spinal stun please."

Naismith's massive bodyguard stood, pulling the captive upright and immobilizing him as she did so. Poised on his toes and looking almost like an ancient bullfighter, Naismith circled the desperately struggling Komarran, fiddled with his stunner, and shot the man in the back at point-blank range. The man's lower body went completely limp. His arms twitched, but did not seem to be under his control.

Vorkosigan, meanwhile, was sorting through his data case. After Taura enlisted help from a couple of the armsmen to lay the prisoner out on the floor, the Auditor retrieved a minuscule hypospray, knelt behind the man's head and made a precise injection.

_He's done this before_, Laisa thought, fascinated and faintly horrified at the same time. She'd never thought of Lord Auditor Vorkosigan as a military man, what with his obvious disabilities, but she now was suddenly and uncomfortably reminded that he'd spent a decade in the secret police. It was fast-penta, it must be. Did Lord Auditor Vorkosigan normally wander around with interrogation drugs just in case? It seemed a little paranoid even for him.

"Public relations _nightmare_," Duv grumbled from beside her. He had a data organizer out and was preparing to take notes.

"I'd rather know what's going on, though." Laisa said.

"I'd rather everyone else _didn't_."

The image wavered, swinging back and forth. Fazliu's shocked attention seemed to be shifting between the Vorkosigan brothers and their prisoner. Her fingertips floated briefly in view as her hand moved to cup her mouth.

"Actually, ma'am, you can help here," Lord Vorkosigan said, catching her eye. His expression was frighteningly neutral.

"What?" Fazliu asked incredulously, echoing Laisa's thoughts exactly.

"Sit… there," he directed. "Hold his hand, smile, and stay calm."

"He might be rude," Naismith observed. "You should warn her about that."

"Whatever he does, stay calm." Vorkosigan said firmly.

"Um…" Fazliu said in a small voice, half protesting. Her hand became visible as it reached out and took the prisoner's limp hand tentatively.

The Komarran's expression was very strange, and he didn't seem to be entirely aware of his surroundings. Eventually his eyes glazed over slightly, his breathing becoming less panicked and more even.

"Can you hear me?" Lord Vorkosigan asked the question softly, but the accent that came out of his mouth was utterly unfamiliar. It was pure Komarran, with the hint of an Equinox Dome brogue. He remained kneeling behind the man's head, out of sight.

"Yes…" the prisoner mumbled.

"We've just put you back together again. What's your name?" There was idle curiosity in Vorkosigan's tone, but no malice.

"Antonin," The prisoner said. He tried to choke back a giggle, but it flowed out like water, hiccupy and high-pitched.

"What is your full name?" Vorkosigan repeated calmly.

"Paoli. Antonin Paoli."

"Where were you born, Antonin?"

"I was born in Tunis," he said.

"Was your father Komarran?"

"Ya. And mum." The man nodded.

"Who are you working for right now?" Vorkosigan asked.

"Obis called a bunch of the old crowd. Felt them out first, then said he had the cash and the backing to take Komarr back, for real. Moretti too. You could feel history happening, right there, those two working together. He found some mercs, but he didn't tell them he was going for the whole thing." Paoli giggled harder. "Barrayarans can't stop us. They'll be gooone. Can't stop the people."

"Who gave the money to Obis?"

The Komarran giggled some more. "Cash, toys, I don't know. We prove we can take the fucking fascists, no one will dare mess with us. The occupation's all built on lies, and they can't handle the truth about themselves." He blinked. "You're _pretty_, lady. How'd _you_ like to be first..."

"Stop," the Auditor said swiftly. The man stopped, mouth agape, staring at Fazliu with a puppylike expression on his face. "Where are you holding the Barrayaran Emperor?"

"I don't know exactly. Ninth floor somewhere. Around there." Vorkosigan exchanged a look with his brother. Both looked peculiarly exasperated.

"Milady," Galeni said. "Admiral Lord Vorventa is here to see you."

She brushed some hair from her face, turned her head, and there he was.


	7. Chapter 7

"You know there once was freedom  
You know how dangerous that can be  
The people used to dance and sing  
and they used to run wild in the streets"  
-The Clash, _Dictator_

Admiral Lord Phillipe Vorventa was shorter than he had looked on the vid, with black hair and broad features. He was not a handsome man, by any means. Even aside from his unfortunate scrawniness, his face had that slightly inbred look all Barrayarans had to one extent or another in spades. She raised her hand and he kissed it with dry lips.

General Laisner did not kiss her hand – he was not Vor. She vaguely recalled his family background was in trade, making him well suited to understanding the political side of the Komarran occupation. He was flanked by Colonel Eliopoulos, a powerfully built man who Laisa immediately picked out as the most dangerous of the three. The weight of the nerve disruptor at her hip was surprisingly reassuring. Gere, having completed his escort duty, returned silently to her side.

"You're not at your posts, gentlemen," she said. They were unarmed, which was a testament to either their good intentions or their overconfidence. She had a sudden moment of unease. Had she and Galeni misjudged the threat of a coup? What was actually going on? Staring up, she caught Vorventa's eye as he straightened. "Is there an issue?"

The admiral and the general exchanged a look. "We've discovered information that leads us to believe the Emperor was betrayed from within," Vorventa said. His voice was vibrant and commanding… and agitated.

"Explain," Laisa said.

"Milady, you have been misled by your advisers," the admiral said. He pointed one skinny finger at Galeni, who almost flinched. "That man is a _terrorist_, and the son of terrorists. He is the one who has betrayed Admiral Vorkosigan to the enemy, because…"

"Admiral, I don't believe–" she interrupted.

"_Because_," Vorventa huffed, "He's not Galeni, he's Galen! From _that_ family of outlaws. He knows these sociopaths, he worked with them on Earth."

Duv did not deny the accusation. How could he? Laisa blinked, stunned, as pieces fell into place. It was blazingly obvious, if only in retrospect. What else could he be, this well-spoken officer with a rebel past and a Barrayaran-style name? He'd subtly lied about who he was to get to his current post. Was he lying about everything?

Laisa had seen how far Galeni would go in the service of the Empire, but could even that be a front for his true intentions? She frowned, disturbed.

Vorventa looked around the room. "He _killed_ men, in the Revolt. It's in his file. He confessed it to Lord Auditor Vorkosigan many years back, but the Vorkosigans suppressed it. Playing their integration game. And look what their charity has brought them!"

He wasn't trying to convince her, Laisa realized. He was trying to convince the men of ImpSec Komarr. And who was Duv to them, but an upstart set above them? These men had spent their lives rooting out Komarran terrorists. They were primed to see them in every park, in every apartment building.

She'd thought Rathjens loyal, to stay at his post while the others came here. Was he instead shrewd? After all, either way this turned out he won. Her father had realized when he stepped into this building that he was on enemy ground. She was slowly realizing it herself.

Aside from Duv, she was the only Komarran in the room.

She took a deep breath. If they had tried to convince her, she might have listened, but they weren't doing that. They were trying to incite a mutiny with soft words and slander, and they would have no more use for her after they'd destroyed Galeni than before.

"Commodore Galeni, do you have any answer to these men's allegations?" she asked, trying to reassert control of the room. He'd dealt with being the sole Komarran in his military peer group most of his life. Surely he was better at this sort of improvisation by now than her.

"Why don't you blame your colonel for being Greek while you're at it?" Galeni said to Vorventa and Laisner. There was a quiet rage behind his eyes, something Laisa had never seen in him before. He looked at her. "I'm no traitor, Laisa. They're not accusing me of anything specific except being foreign, and I can't deny that."

_This is your home planet, Duv_, Laisa thought.

"Milady," Laisner said, "you may have understandable sympathies with this man, but we must insist that you let us military officers handle these matters."

That was _it_. "If you're going to play shoot the Komarran, how about you start with the ones that aren't _on your side_," she said. Her voice was arctic. "All three of you are letting terrorist expatriates run rampant through the High Consulate while you conduct this little witchhunt. Never mind that the failure wasn't in ImpSec Komarr, but the military defense of Solstice…_General_. I am not amused." She stared up into Laisner's eyes to press the point home, wondering if she was laying on the ice queen act too much. This would be so much easier to pull off in spike heels.

There was still a dangerous fire behind Duv's eyes. He moved to stand beside her.

"The operation to rescue the emperor cannot be…" Eliopoulos gestured a little with one hand, searching for the right word "…rushed. Need to know where he is." Not a native English speaker, his voice was heavily accented.

"And if you'd been listening," Laisa said, pointing at the vid-projection, "he would have told you because he mentioned it not thirty seconds ago. I'm half-minded to turn control of the military over to _Naismith_. He at least seems to know what he's doing."

Naismith was saying something quietly to his brother, pointing upwards. Vorkosigan nodded. "We're reaching diminishing returns," he said and shot the Komarran man with his stunner. Wincing as he stood, he leaned for a moment on his cane.

"Diminishing," Naismith said. He rolled his tongue thoughtfully. "Diminishing, diminishing, diminishing." With every repetition his voice drew closer to the Equinox brogue his brother had feigned, until he at last duplicated it. "Huh. Where'd you pick that one up?"

"I don't mean any offense, but that's…" Fazliu searched for a word.

"Creepy?" Naismith asked.

"_Yes._"

Laisa silently agreed. Eliopoulos, watching this, snorted. "The little boys should get out of the way," he said. "They might get hurt."

"Milady, you are overreaching your proper role as the mother of the heir." Admiral Vorventa said. "You are not qualified to make decision about military matters."

"Bordering on treason, Vorventa," Galeni growled. "Go back to your fleet. We'll have no coups here."

Laisa stared up at the admiral. "The question is simple," she said. "Will you obey me, or not?"

"You are not…" he began.

"Armsman, arrest this man," she said pleasantly. Both her guards stepped forward.

"Now wait one moment," Laisner said indignantly, appealing to the room. "You're Barrayarans. You're not going to stand for this!"

"That one too." Luckily, she had two armsmen.

Vorventa was not quite stupid enough to fight Gere, but he stared at her with fury. Eliopoulos made no move to intervene; he looked amused.

"I know a mutiny when I see one," she said, stepping closer. With quiet satisfaction, she watched as Galeni's men took the two officers away. Duv himself was looking uncomfortable – he was still getting suspicious looks from his staff.

"Are you going to give me any trouble, Colonel?" she asked the remaining member of their party.

"Oh, no." he said. She gave him a hard look. Despite his air of comfortable backcountry idiocy, no Greek hick got to his rank without being seriously talented. Laisa was tempted to arrest him too.

"Take your men and Vorventa's back to the Consulate and put yourself under General Rathjen's authority," she said instead. "We need to be able to move on a moment's notice."

"Might be tricky. The marines will not be happy."

"Then you'll have to be clever."

He gave her a wicked little grin. "We will get your husband out. No worries. Everything back the way it should be."

"I do hope you're right," she said. "Commodore, please have someone escort him out."

On the vid, Naismith's crowd was moving again with purpose. Laisa recognized the wide, curving corridor in the south end of the building, even though the windows were shuttered due to the security lockdown. The quarters she and Gregor had been using were nearby.

"Actually, the liege status is important," Vorkosigan was saying to Fazliu. "Even with those Komarrans upstairs. There's vastly different penalties for subjects and foreigners, and the categories aren't as clear-cut as you'd think. Many expats surrendered their shares and citizenship in exchange for keeping their other assets in an amnesty program the government offered. Moretti, even, though that won't save him."

"I didn't think… oh, Lutang did, right." Naismith said. "That whole area of law is a serious headache and has come close to getting me killed once or twice." His eyes gleamed. "But yeah, we've been waiting to spring that on Dag for _years_."

Vorkosigan pulled up. The corridor ahead of them was strewn with bodies, in undress greens, black fatigues and two liveries. Blood and plasma burns streaked the hallway.

"Well, we're here," he said hollowly, picking his way over a corpse. Bloody booted footprints tracked away from the scene.

"Where's _Mother_?" Naismith hissed.

"Father mentioned she was alive, somewhere," Vorkosigan said. "I need to get to the secure comconsole here in his quarters."

Naismith crouched by a body wearing maroon and gold livery, checking for life signs. The Vordarian heir had a post in the colonial government, Laisa recalled vaguely. He moved on to a man in Barrayaran uniform whose face was a river of blood. Staring down a moment, he said "This man's been tortured."

Vorkosigan paused in the doorway, his face a mask.

"He was ImpSec, that's probably why," the admiral continued. "His Horus-eyes got shoved through his eyeballs."

Fazliu edged away a little.

"Somebody went and made _sure_ all these people were dead." Naismith sighed. He looked at another fallen man in brown and silver, seeming bitter and pensive.

"These are all Barrayaran bodies." Fazliu said. "Were they all killed just like that?"

"The winners recover their dead." Naismith pointed. "Someone was wounded or worse there, but men in armor versus men without doesn't work too well. I think the mercenaries came through on the first sweep and the Komarrans after that." He shook his head. "I still don't understand. It doesn't add up."

"What doesn't?" Fazliu asked.

"Costs for an operation like this. The money. Too much to all be laundered through Obis. That little punk said they came at us through Sergyar and the Reach and that doesn't make sense either."

"There's plenty of reasons to use the Reach as a point of attack," Vorkosigan said. "Especially if you want to cover your trail. The Komarrans needed to escape the surveillance on them."

"I was just out there," Naismith said. "This isn't five years ago. It's about the most militarized border in the Imperium right now. You can't _get_ a mercenary mother ship and four drop shuttles through without being searched."

"Bribes, perhaps," Lord Vorkosigan said. "Or our systems were compromised."

"The risk/reward just doesn't work out. It'd be easier to go in through Escobar or Pol or Rho Ceta." Naismith shook his head. "What idiot would _take_ this sort of contract? It's a suicidal death pact. They won't get out. Moretti can't win. He might be able to force Barrayar into civil war, but an independent Komarr is a delusion. Its neighbors are too powerful and too close, and its population is too tiny."

"Moretti's not thinking rationally," Vorkosigan said. "Or politically. Unfortunately, that makes him even more dangerous."

Naismith frowned. "I keep coming back to the Cetagandans, as I try to work this out. Benin knew more than he was telling."

"Yes, I thought so as well."

Footsteps echoed from the direction they'd come. Taura unslung her massive gun, but the man who approached them at a dead run was no Komarran. His black and silver livery was intimately familiar to Laisa, and she even knew his name, Vandyke. He had a weapon out, but was nervously looking behind him and didn't notice the group for several seconds. He stopped twenty feet away, stared wildly at Taura, and then noticed the Vorkosigan armsmen.

"What's goin-" Lord Vorkosigan started.

The thud of boots echoed from around the corner. The armsman's eyes widened. "No, run, I'm being..."

Sergeant Taura's head jerked up. A plasma arc bolt screamed over everyone's head.

"Fuck," Lord Vorkosigan breathed. About a dozen heavily armored men and women came down the corridor towards them.

"_Down_," the leading man snarled. "Drop your weapons. Hands where I can see them."

Vorkosigan stiffly motioned the group to comply.

Naismith was concealed from the newcomers behind the armsmen and his bodyguard. The admiral eased his nerve disruptor out of its holster, thought better of it, and eased it back in. He crouched to the floor, looking between Taura's legs at the intruders, silently counting. His eyes screwed shut, and for a moment he looked utterly bleak.

The gray matte armor of the mercenaries was unmarked and unadorned, but two men had more complicated helmets than the others. Another woman, near the back, was wearing a white armband marked with a crescent in red.

"Ah," one of the leaders said. "Armed resistance. Cute." The accent was Komarran. A fringe of straight black hair stuck out from his command helmet, framing his sallow face. "Hello again, Lord Vorkosigan. I take it those corpses back there are thanks to you?" His eyes narrowed at Naismith's bodyguard. "Drop the gun."

"Shit, it's _Sergeant Taura_," a female mercenary said, brushing forward through the crowd. Her face was barely visible behind her helmet, obscured by a translucent gray hood with a silvery net of wires running through it.

"I am fast enough to take out three of you before you can kill me," Taura growled. She bared her teeth in defiance, still brandishing her massive plasma cannon.

"Yeah, but you'll be _paste_," the officer said. "I know you're there, Naismith. You're not fooling anyone."

"You're in serious breach of contract, Lieutenant Moretti," Naismith's voice was flat and nearly murderous as he stepped out from around his bodyguard. A few of the mercenaries shifted, their eyes intensely focused on him. "As I'm sure you know."

"Captain Moretti," he said. Laughter danced in his dark eyes. "You're behind the times. Wasn't expecting you to show up."

"I thought I might see you here, Mike," Naismith said, his voice a soap bubble of calm on an underlying sea of incandescent fury. "I wasn't expecting you to drag nearly a hundred people to hell with you." He looked at the woman who had spoken up. "You've been betrayed, Phillipi. Do you realize it yet?"

The younger Moretti smiled, "I've seen you work before, Miles. You're brilliant at making something from nothing, but that only works on the unsuspecting. You've got _nothing_. Tell your sergeant to put the gun down, and I promise not to toss you to the Cetas."

"No wonder that ship was on the cleared list," Galeni breathed. "It's one of _Naismith's_."

"That's not true," Naismith said. "Taura is perfectly capable of killing you, leaving your motley crew at loose ends. They might even start to realize you don't have an exit plan here. You never did."

Moretti smiled again. "You've played the victory or death game yourself. Dagoola. That suicide rush through the Reach. I watched and I learned. Sometimes the stakes are important enough."

"A new set of martyrs, for a new Komarr," Lord Vorkosigan said, very dry. "I don't suppose you asked for volunteers."

"Oh, we'll win," Moretti said. "Regardless." He drew his needler.

Naismith crossed his arms. He was facing away from Fazliu, and his expression was thus invisible, though he seemed to be looking past Moretti at the other troopers.

"Uh, Mike...," the mercenary woman Phillipi said. The dark-skinned man wearing the other command helmet looked sideways at Moretti.

"You don't seem to be surrendering, Naismith." The needler swung to point at Lord Vorkosigan's head. "Please correct that, now."

"You shoot him and I rip your head off," Taura snarled, coiling back to a anticipatory crouch. Her teeth were bared, and the pure threat in her tone made Phillipi take a step back. A few of the other troopers aimed at her.

"This is going to end badly," Galeni whispered.

"You do not want to play this game with me, Mike," Naismith said after a moment.

Moretti sneered. And then a lot of things happened at once.

A blue bolt from behind the vid perspective hit Moretti, splashing harmlessly off his armor. The mercenary captain's finger tightened on the trigger, but Taura was a blur of motion, hitting him in the chest.

Moretti's needler fired. Lord Vorkosigan collapsed. Phillipi nearly shot at the holocam - at Fazliu? - but instead scrambled back as Taura hooked her claws into the back of Moretti's armor and scythed two other mercenaries out of the way to smash him headfirst against a wall. Two people shot at her with plasma arcs, but she was faster, using the mercenary captain's armored body as a shield. The shots harmlessly diffused off his portable plasma mirror.

"Hold fire!" the other mercenary commander snapped. "For God's sake put him down, Taura."

She looked back at Naismith, smoldering. Naismith looked down at his brother.

"Framingham, you fucking..." The armor was good. Moretti was still conscious, though he'd lost his helmet after Taura sprung the catches.

Lord Vorkosigan wasn't moving. Naismith crouched down by his bleeding brother and gently borrowed his stunner. Walking up to the mercenary captain, he reached up and shot him under the chin, execution style.

The mercenaries shifted, but none of them fired. Laisa's eyes were drawn to Naismith. Something had changed about the way he moved, and there was no doubt he was now in total command of the situation. Moretti dangled from Taura's grasp now, unconscious.

Taura dropped him.

Admiral Naismith stepped away from his bodyguard, staring up at the half-squad of armored mercenaries. He was so furious he was twitching.

"You realize," he said, "that you're all dead. All of you."

The man named Framingham looked thoughtfully at him. "We wouldn't have dropped if we knew you were downside, but we're not going to let you get in our way if it comes to that."

"You think your ship's still there, sergeant?" Naismith growled. He shook his head. "You've gone well past the point of no return."

Framingham frowned. "We'll chat, Naismith, but this isn't your army. I want to make that perfectly clear."

A small noise from the tiny, crumpled body on the floor. "That was _really_ stupid." Lord Vorkosigan hissed. His eyes flicked open, and focused murderously on Fazliu. "Staggeringly moronic. Worthy of certain idiot relatives of mine, except _they're_ not that dumb either. What the _fuck_ possessed you to go after an armored guy with a stunner?"

"It always works in the vids," Fazliu said in self-defense, sounding a little embarrassed. Phillipi's eyeroll was visible even behind her helmet.

"_Komarrans_," Vorkosigan snarled. "You're all insane." Blood was streaked across his face, and his left shoulder was a gory mess. His voice shifted back to the Equinox Dome accent. "It's the Emperor's Birthday, let's go throw rocks at commando squads!"

"You'd better see to him, Voa," Naismith said to the woman in the far back with the armband. "Piotr's the only remaining man in the building with the authority to cut a deal with you. If you're _lucky_, he's feeling more merciful than I am."

Unlike her companions, the medic was unarmed, with just a medical stunner at her belt. She ran it over Lord Vorkosigan's shoulder and he immediately looked better, or at least less liable to pass out.

"You were on Kamin, right?" Naismith said to the medic. "I'm assuming one of the senior surgeons took you aside at one point and gave you a rundown on my bone issues. Yes? Good. Keep that in mind."

The medic nodded. She took out a small hand tractor, and carefully immobilized the razor strand trailing out of Vorkosigan's shoulder so she could sever it with her laser scalpel.

"And… uh." Naismith stared down at his brother. "Are you a seizure risk right now?" he asked awkwardly.

Lord Vorkosigan's eyes slitted open. "No. Fortunately."

"You're up to handling this?" Naismith inclined his chin toward the mercenaries.

"Yes."

"Stop _squirming_," the medic said. She frowned. "You have a laceration on your head too."

Vorkosigan reluctantly held still, staring into space. "I'm not going to offer you money, to turn against your employer," he said to the mercenaries generally. "Or free escape. Your ship's blown up, and even if it isn't you're in such _total breach_ of your loan contract that my brother is obliged to repossess it. Assuming it's—"

"Should be _Wild Thing_," Naismith said. "If I haven't _completely_ lost track."

Framingham crossed his armored arms. He was a big man, more than twice Naismith's weight.

"The Imperium will be confiscating it, of course," Vorkosigan said to his brother.

"No issue," the admiral sighed.

Galeni leaned forward over the table, looking intently interested.

"You can keep whatever you were paid by the Komarrans," Vorkosigan continued, "assuming, of course, that you were sensible enough to get paid in advance.

"Mike was handling that..." Framingham said.

Laisa couldn't see Naismith's face, but from his body language he was rolling his eyes.

"I will also offer all non-Barrayaran subjects safe passage to their home planets. We will not waive the charges, but we will not attempt to extradite. You will not be permitted to step foot on our planets or pass through our space again. I will add that this is _extremely_ generous of me."

"Uh," one of the troopers said. He was a tall, slim, effeminate man. A silver and white decal was sketched on his face, half-hidden by the helmet and his gray hood. His accent was galactic-tinged, but recognizably Cetagandan.

Naismith looked sideways. "Can we work something out...?" he asked carefully.

Vorkosigan frowned. "We'll consider special cases. In exchange, I want you to disengage from your defense of the building - _without_ alerting your Komarran friends - and escort the main group of hostages to the shared underground bomb shelter for the complex."

"That's _it_?" Framingham asked.

"That's it," Vorkosigan confirmed.

"Hmm," he said. A flash of white teeth as he smiled without humor. "And how are you going to prevent that army of yours from jumping us as soon as they realize the roof's unmanned?" You don't have comms either."

"...good point." Naismith said. He looked thoughtful. "Are you thinking this through, Piotr? Ser Moretti's going to realize pretty fast that something's up. As soon as the hostages start moving, the clock starts ticking. Everything from then out goes straight into irrevocable territory. It might take them a few minutes to realize they've been had if we're quiet, _but.._."

Lord Vorkosigan leaned over and picked up his cane from where he had dropped it with his working hand. The medic drew her hands back, looking very annoyed. With some difficulty, the Auditor levered himself to his feet. "Let's chat more privately," he said to Framingham. "You, me, my brother. In here."

He stepped through the door to Count Vorkosigan's empty quarters. The medic swore under her breath as he started to escape and went after him. The other two men looked at each other, then at their respective subordinates, and followed.


	8. Chapter 8

"Is this the world we created?  
What did we do it for?  
Is this the world we invaded  
Against the law?"  
-Queen, _Is This the World We Created?_

The tension in the hallway ratcheted up several notches as the leaders of the two groups left for a private discussion. One of the armsmen knelt by the body of a comrade killed in the defense of Count Vorkosigan, touching his chill white skin and searching for signs of life. The mercenaries were hyperalert as they nervously watched the looming Sergeant Taura. While they were fully armored and she was not, they seemed much more afraid of her then vice versa. Perhaps rightly, Laisa thought. Naismith's bodyguard was _freakishly_ fast. She still guarded Captain Moretti's body, silently daring anyone to try to take it from her.

"There's no other way to do this," Lord Vorkosigan's voice echoed over the image of the silent standoff in the hall. He sounded suddenly very weary.

"Piotr, I don't mean any disrespect, but you're on some serious painkillers and you've got a head wound. You shouldn't be working out combat plans."

"Fine then, Miles." The elder brother's voice was ever so slightly sarcastic. "Show us how it's done."

The click of cavalry boots on the floor. Naismith was pacing. "You're right," he said. "There isn't."

"I'm glad you acknowledge that." Lord Vorkosigan said acerbically. Both men sounded more stressed than they'd betrayed to their subordinates.

Naismith's tone became very neutral. "Are you in, Framingham? This is the best shot you're going to get to get your people out of this situation alive."

"Mmm," he said. "On your word as Vorkosigan, kid?"

"If you want," the admiral said. "Or just my word."

"I can't speak for the other squads..." he said, and Laisa knew Naismith had him.

More pacing. "There's no way to get them both out. I think I can get Gregor out, but... not both."

"Not both," Vorkosigan agreed gravely. "There never was a choice which, in any case."

Another silence. Were they writing off their father, just like that? Admiral Naismith's actions had a peculiar and compelling internal logic to them, but the way he approached situations was just bizarre. The sensible thing to do would have been to use this opportunity to get out of the building, but the possibility didn't even seem to have crossed his mind.

"So," Lord Vorkosigan said. "About twelve Komarrans in the audience chamber. Around four or five with Gregor. We've taken out the four that were handling the other hostages. If we can remove the mercenary screens from the picture, this almost sounds doable." His voice became very serious. "Moment of truth, Miles. Can you get Gregor out _without_ alerting Moretti?"

Naismith blew out a breath. "I need to borrow Trooper Phillipi. And Voahirana. Ideally I'd also want the autosniper on the roof to provide covering fire. The soundproofing's pretty good and they're on different floors, but I'm not going to count on it."

"I'm _busy_," the medic complained. "Unless you want this done carelessly. He got winged pretty hard."

"Definitely Voa." He thought for a moment. "And Sergeant Azua. We have to hit them _fast_. If the Komarrans aren't dead or unconscious in the first three seconds we've lost. With that, I'd say maybe a three-fourths shot at a live extraction, and fifty/fifty on Moretti."

A gamble, Laisa thought. Was it all down to gambles now?

"If you want to lead any of my people into a live-fire situation I'm going to demand better terms," Framingham said.

"Full amnesty for the individuals involved if they pull it off." Lord Vorkosigan said. "Same terms as the others otherwise."

"Hah," the woman named Voa said. "How about cash? I'm unarmed medical personnel, you can't shoot me anyway."

"You _still_ haven't paid off your student loans?" Naismith was amused.

"Oh, shut up," she muttered.

"I'd like better odds," Lord Vorkosigan said after a long moment. "We can't assume Moretti doesn't have a bomb."

"They're better than the alternative," Naismith stated baldly. "Unless you have any _particular insights_ you'd like to share?"

"I'm not an oracle, Miles."

Laisa looked sideways at Galeni, a little confused. His lips pursed and he said nothing.

"How're your communications, Framingham?"

"We can barely talk to each other on the same floor. The roof is completely cut off because of those damn antennas. I wanted to blow them up but Mike said no."

"Are you in orbital contact?"

The mercenary sergeant didn't answer. Outside in the hall, a couple of his burly male subordinates were watching Fazliu thoughtfully. They were younger than the armsmen, who were all in their forties and fifties, but grizzled veterans no less. Some of the mercenaries were talking to each other subvocally on their helmet comms.

"Right," Naismith continued. "How long will it take you to get in contact with the other squad leaders?"

"We have to take the stairs up, so..."

"I can get a lift tube unsealed and working for you," Lord Vorkosigan said.

"Excellent," Framingham said, in the tone of a man who had climbed more than enough stairs today. "Five minutes?"

"I can't believe he's going to try this," Galeni said. "They're _both_ insane."

"Necessary order of events," Naismith said. "You go up there and talk the other squad leaders around. Alert the pickets, but don't pull them until after Gregor is out of the building. Start moving the hostages right away."

"There's a large freight lift I can get operational for you," Vorkosigan said. "That'll get you to the first subbasement, and you know where the bomb shelter exit is because you've been guarding it. Get the walking out first, and as many stunned as you can manage. I'll send one of my armsmen to help keep herd."

"Meanwhile, as soon as the pickets know I'm coming, my team will go in," Naismith said. "Your three plus me, Taura and the armsmen... I have to take Vandyke, though I'd rather not. There's got to be a secret exit from this floor and he'll know it..." he trailed off.

"Miles?" Lord Vorkosigan asked.

"I think I can add ten percent to our chances," the admiral said. "Let me think a minute."

"We have to assume Moretti is ready to drop the hammer on a moment's notice," the Auditor said. "We need to remove the other hostages from the situation first because we have no idea what he might have up his sleeve. What's your estimate on getting Count Vorkosigan out alive, Miles?"

"One in ten, one in twenty...?" He didn't sound optimistic. "There's just too many Komarrans in that room. Enough of them have light armor that blanket stun isn't an option."

"I could put a team on it," Framingham said.

"Mmm." Vorkosigan said. "No. My secondary motivation for removing you lot from the situation is that the regular forces will be shooting on sight, and a real firefight between you and what armor they can bring to bear will destroy the building and probably kill everyone in it. I'll be sending the ImpSec corporal we found in the basement to signal to whoever's watching you from the roof to let them know what's going on. Definitely don't withdraw from the roof until the first extraction's complete. At that stage I'd say run for it. Let the Barrayaran hostage teams try their luck with Moretti."

"I _will_ be going in after I get Gregor out," Naismith said. "So will the armsmen, You know that."

"Yes, I know. Well." Vorkosigan sighed. "Beware of friendly fire, because it'll be a mess."

"Can you make sure Rathjens is watching this?" Laisa asked Galeni.

"I'm sure he is," the commodore said. "We're going to lose holo, though, if that idiot journalist leaves with the hostages. Once she's out of the building the signal won't go through to the antenna. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder to tell what's going on in a firefight by ear."

It had been pretty hard earlier, Laisa thought. Even on the full-sized display table, the vid quality really wasn't too great.

"I'll unlock the freight elevator and the far left bank up to seven for you, Framingham, and the central bank up to nine for you, Miles. Password for both will be twelve." There was a squeaking noise as Vorkosigan settled in a station chair. Some subvocal muttering from the medic was audible. "Let's get this started now, before they start shooting each other out there in the hall. One thing I need to make perfectly clear, sergeant, is that we will be keeping your Captain Moretti."

"I figured," Framingham said.

"Eventually... people run out of second chances," Naismith said. "Get going."

The door opened. "Azua, Phillipi, Naismith wants you for something," Framingham said. "The rest of you with me. We're getting out of here."

The mercenary woman in front smiled, her face lighting up with sudden interest. Her ghem companion seemed wary. The thin, humorless smile on Naismith's face did nothing to alleviate his suspicions.

"I'm detaching you to go with Framingham, Roic," Vorkosigan said from inside the room. "Find my mother. Get her out of the building. I do not care if you have to stun her, get her out."

The armsman's eyebrows rose. "M'lord," he said.

"Corporal, you too. I have written orders for you, follow them to the letter. Voahirana, thank you for your efforts but I'll be fine. Please give this to him." She apparently was confused, so he clarified. "Er, the ImpSec man. Green uniform, not my brother."

The medic dutifully ferried the datapad containing the orders Vorkosigan had just written out, though she looked like she felt the task was far beneath her pay grade. "Who does he think he _is_?" she asked Naismith sotto voce as she walked through the door. The admiral smirked a little.

"What are you up to this time, Lord Miles?" Pym asked. He looked dubiously at the lingering mercenaries, saving special disdain for the Cetagandan.

Naismith twitched a little at the honorific.

"Dr. Fazliu, you should...," Vorkosigan's voice echoed from inside the Count's quarters. He was clearly not inclined to move from his chair, and Laisa didn't really blame him.

"No, wait." Naismith interrupted. He'd been mostly ignoring the holojournalist since meeting his brother in the Consulate depths, but his full attention was back on her now. "How would you like to be useful?" he asked.

"Useful for what?" She sounded wary.

"We're going after Gregor," Naismith said, "but a frontal assault is doomed. I need an excuse for these folk," he nodded at the remaining mercenaries, "to be talking to the people holding the Emperor hostage. That means a high-profile hostage they've found lurking about that they want an opinion on. While I'd normally volunteer myself... because of who I am, that's not an option in this particular case. Being Komarran, you're much less likely to create suspicion in their minds."

"That's because she's a _civilian_," Galeni snarled. "Naismith, you maniac."

"You'd probably have been better off in the basement." Lord Vorkosigan sounded more amused than appalled. "Your choice, madame. He doesn't have the authority to draft you."

"Er, Emperor Gregor?" she asked, seeming a little startled. Naismith gave her a 'who else?' look. "How likely am I to get shot?"

"If you hide behind Voa, it's not too likely," Naismith said. "There's no question we can kill those guys. The question is if we can kill them fast enough."

"Oh, fine," she said. Laisa blinked.

"...really?" Naismith asked. "Excellent. Azua, start thinking about how you're going to approach this. You'll have Phillipi and Voa as well. Dr. Fazliu here is a prominent journalist, I was thinking you could say Mike sent her up..."

Framingham and the main body of mercenaries departed with the armsman and the corporal, while Naismith abandoned the bloodspattered hall for Count Vorkosigan's slightly less bloodspattered quarters. His retinue followed. As Fazliu stepped across the threshold, the Auditor could be seen again, sitting in a station chair and using a comconsole one-handed. His father's interrogation was visible on his vid-plate. He didn't look up as his brother entered, but he muted the display.

"You seemed to know that man out there, the leader," Gregor's armsman Vandyke said to Lord Vorkosigan. His voice was very chill. He ignored Naismith and the mercenaries contemptuously.

"_That_'s a long story," Naismith said. "But we've got a few minutes to kill if you really want to know."

Vandyke's eyes narrowed.

"It was at a party," Lord Vorkosigan sighed. "After the Reach War."

"There was this karaoke machine, you see, on one of my larger ships," Naismith explained further. "Betan make, a universe's worth of songs, pitch correction – it was great. Except you really can't get away with using that sort of thing as fleet commanding officer. There's a certain professional distance...anyway, it always immensely frustrated me. My last order when we retired was that I damn well was going to have a party, and everyone retiring would have to sing. "

"Bel Thorne showed up in an evening dress," Lord Vorkosigan reminisced, a little wistful. "I must add that I was there under mild protest. And so off duty it wasn't funny."

"Baz, Elena, Taura... Taura's got a nice voice, you know."

"Not as nice as Bel's," she said.

"The joke in the fleet used to be that half the command staff was on the run from ImpSec and half was on the run from the Betan Mental Health Board," Naismith said to Fazliu and the armsmen, now ignoring Vandyke back. "I'd just gotten the ImpSec half settled that morning. There were maybe two dozen people in the fleet that needed to, um, regularize their relationship with the Imperium, myself included. Some posthumously. No issues with most of them, but when we got to Mike Simon Illyan threw a _fit_."

"I only caught the edges of that. And the finale," Lord Vorkosigan said.

"It was pretty impressive. We had a row over it, which I won," Naismith said. Laisa winced. Naismith _would_ argue. "I was smart enough to write it into the contract beforehand, after all. Got Gregor to sign off, Piotr handed the pardon over during the party, and Lieutenant Moretti basically threw it in his face."

"That was how it _started_," Lord Vorkosigan muttered.

"The next bit was your fault for conspiring with Bel against me," Naismith said with a faint smirk. "Once you got up on stage you deserved everything you had coming."

Laisa was beginning to realize how weirdly alike the Vorkosigan brothers were. She'd previously focused on the differences, but she was beginning to understand they were more cosmetic than one might think.

The Auditor removed the small interrogation kit he'd used to question the Komarran from his pocket, and tossed it one handed at Taura. It went wild, but she still caught it. "You'll need that, ideally," he said.

"Right," Naismith said.

Sergeant Taura smiled and handed the kit to Naismith. "One last thing," she said. "Piotr?" Approaching the Auditor, she crouched to his level and whispered into his ear. His eyes glinted, and he reached out with one hand to gently tug her closer. He kissed her then, half-formal, half-intimate, and released her.

Naismith stared up at the sergeant as she wandered back to the door, mouth slightly agape. He had the look on his face of a man who had only just realized his bodyguard was carrying on an affair with his twin brother. She smirked at him. "For luck," she said. "Let's go."

Laisa felt the mood shift in the control room. Most of the ImpSec men were just pretending to work now, watching the vid with the same fearful fixation as she. The Admiral's strike group was moving now, leaving Lord Vorkosigan alone in the Count's quarters. Naismith gave him one last narrow-eyed look before ducking out the door.

"Piotr's luck has _always_ been shit," the Admiral observed to his bodyguard with false nonchalance as they walked purposefully towards the lifts.

Taura smiled and ignored him.

"_How_ long has this been...?"

"Sh."

A longer pause.

"Are you going to fight that haut-woman for him? Because I, personally, would pay to—"

"_Admiral_," she said.

The three Vorkosigan armsmen seemed unruffled by the discussion, but Gregor's man Vandyke looked coldly disapproving. Whether at Naismith, the slim pair of armored mercenaries trailing him, or both, it wasn't clear.

"Right," Naismith said, getting the lift tube working. "Azua, Phillipi, Voa, and Fazliu are the main strike team. Taura, Pym, Armsman Vandyke and I will remain in the tube as backup until the shooting starts. He looked at the other armsmen. "You two stay down here to guard our retreat."

"He's _Cetagandan_," Vandyke snarled, jerking his head at Azua.

"He's a better shot than you are. And unlike you, he has a chance of getting in that room without tipping them off."

"I have marksman qualifications," the armsman said coldly.

"Yes," Azua explained, "but you're Barrayaran. It really is a handicap."

The trip up the lift tube was conducted in silence. Taura went first, grabbing the ladder above the ninth floor lift tube exit and hovering there waiting for the rest. The exit was sealed with a security door, but Naismith quickly opened it with the passcode his brother had given him and dropped out of sight. The mercenaries exited. Phillipi and Azua looked relaxed, while Voahirana seemed typically cranky.

The hallway curved here as well, following the exterior contours of the building. Laisa tensed as she saw a Komarran in the hall. He looked at the approaching group with paranoid suspicion.

"Captain Moretti sent us up," Phillipi said. "The team you sent after the guy mucking with the computers ran into trouble. There were some heavily armed holdouts in the lower levels. Mike's tracking down the last of them and terminating with extreme prejudice, but they killed or stunned the guys we were supposed to be liasoning with. But we found this woman..."

"Stick her in with the other hostages," the Komarran said.

"She's some kind of local celebrity," Azua said. "_Mike_ thought you might want her." A vicious little smile crossed his features. "If you don't, I'll take her." Worlds of implication in that statement.

Fazliu edged back, making a small noise.

"Hey, you keep your filthy ghem hands off the Komarran girls!" the terrorist said, suddenly possessive. "Fucking mercs. Clear off." He reached to grab Fazliu's arm, and glowered at them. Azua smirked and turned away on one heel.

With a continuing glower, the Komarran hit the door intercom. "Steve, there's this girl out here the mercs were messing with. What do you want me to do with her?"

The door started to slide open. A man glanced out, raising his eyebrows as he recognized Fazliu.

Three shots was all it took. Azua _was_ fast. The door finished sliding open, revealing two now-headless Komarran corpses within. Phillipi lowered her nerve disruptor as the guard at the door collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

There was a third body on the floor, in black and silver. He was curled into a fetal position and a breath mask connected him to a medical device. Azua stepped in, warily looking around.

"Huh," Phillipi said.

Racing footsteps from around the bend of the corridor. "Weapons _down_," Naismith snarled at them as he neared. "Drop them. Good." He relaxed. The Cetagandan and the other mercenary looked uneasily at each other – they had obeyed instinctively. "Fantastic. You two can go. Voa, can we take him off whatever this is safely?"

The medic crouched over the Emperor. "Huh, it's just a sedative. Sure." She eased the breath mask over his head. Gregor didn't stir.

"How long until he wakes up?" Naismith asked.

"Couple minutes, maybe?"

"We'll have to move him. Taura?"

Galeni was shaking his head, looking very relieved. Laisa felt exulted. It was going to work!

Naismith's bodyguard stepped into the room, as wired and primed for action as Naismith seemed to be. She easily scooped Gregor off the floor, her movements fast but sure. He was shockingly limp as he dangled in her arms, his face completely relaxed. Gregor was not a small man, but he was utterly dwarfed by the sergeant. She carried him comfortably in front of her.

The armsmen herded Fazliu down the hall, keeping the group moving at a swift pace. Taura soon caught up with them, Naismith jogging beside her to keep up.

"Azua went that way. They're not heading for the rest of the hostages," Taura said to Naismith with a frown.

"Yeah, I don't care," Naismith growled. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"I think they're going back for Mike," she said, re-adjusting her Imperial load so that they both could fit into the lift tube down. It was going to be a tight squeeze.

"As long as they've stopped making my life more difficult playing hostage games with the government I _don't care_," Naismith snarled. "He is now officially no longer my problem. If they want to play personnel retrieval and think they can smuggle him out past ImpSec later they're welcome to try. I, personally, would bet on ImpSec."

Vandyke went down the lift tube first, with one last cold-eyed look back at Taura and the mercenary medic. They followed him, dropping out of sight.

"Shit," Naismith said under his breath. Fazliu was next, but as soon as she stepped in Naismith shoved her forcibly down the tube. He raised his nerve disruptor to fire down the hall at a pair of Komarran newcomers. Someone in the room with Laisa swore.

Stray needler shards impacted the tube wall above Fazliu's head and drifted slowly downward. The holovid wobbled until she got one hand on the tube ladder to steady herself. Her hands were shaking as she looked up.

Abandoning the firefight, Naismith dove down the tube headfirst. Grabbing the safety ladder, he propelled himself into a faster freefall, scrambling past Fazliu. Last in was Armsman Pym, who descended at an only slightly more sedate pace. Naismith used the ladder beside the third floor exit to twist himself out of the tube and rightside-up with practiced speed.

Laisa heard Fazliu swallow as more weapons fire was heard far above. She accelerated her descent and hurriedly stepped out after Naismith onto the third floor landing.

The admiral had the lift tube controls open by the time she arrived and was poking at them. "Don't just _stand there_, keep moving!" he yelled down the hall, apparently at Taura. As Pym ducked out, blue disruptor flashes crackled down the tube.

Naismith grinned slowly, looking at the power readouts. He seemed to be counting to himself silently.

"Uh, m'lord…" Pym said, eying the lift tube nervously.

The admiral ignored him and stabbed at the touchscreen. The lighting in the tube immediately turned emergency red, and a grating slid across to bar entry. There was a yelp from above, and then a prolonged scream. Naismith was still counting to himself, stunner out, when two falling blurs banging into the walls and each other slid past. Naismith made two shots in quick succession and the screaming stopped.

"Oh my god," Fazliu said in quiet hysteria. The image shifted as she moved closer to the grating to look down the lift tube.

"Er," Naismith threw an arm in front of her. "Don't do that. I think I only winged them. God, I hope Moretti didn't hear that. We should go now."

"Are they still _alive_ down there?"

Naismith chuckled with a disturbing grin. "Between Komarran gravity and the failsafes, probably. A few broken limbs. I expect they're pretty cranky if they're still conscious. However, they're five floors down..." Exuding blazing feral glee, he whirled and raced down the hall after his compatriots. "Sons of bitches can take the _stairs_!" he called back at her.

Taura was far ahead, out of sight at first around a corner. As Naismith and the rear guard ran to catch up she slowed to join with them. Despite his short legs Naismith was a respectable if awkward runner, easily outdistancing Fazliu.

"He's waking up," Taura said, covering the distance with one lazy stride for every three of Naismith's.

"One of these offices, maybe…" Naismith said. His eyes darted from side to side. Making a seeming snap judgment, he yanked a door open and strode into a large room that was partitioned into work spaces with dark frosted glass. Still cradling Gregor, Taura ducked carefully inside after him. She couldn't quite stand in the roomy, well-lit office bay, so she dropped awkwardly to one knee.

"M'lord," Pym said from the hallway, "our duty lies elsewhere."

"Yes," Naismith growled. "Go."


	9. Chapter 9

"And the men who spurred us on  
Sit in judgment of all wrong  
They decide and the shotgun sings the song"  
-The Who, _Won't Get Fooled Again_

With the departure of the grim Vorkosigan armsmen, the surreal composition of Naismith's rescue party became even more obvious. The only proper Barrayaran in the lot was now Gregor's man Vandyke, who eyed his dubious companions with paranoid vigilance.

In Taura's arms the Emperor seemed the size of a child, breathing slowly, face nearly relaxed. Looking almost maternal in her own fierce way, the sergeant shifted her grip to better support his head. Naismith paced unconsciously back and forth, biting his lip, counting the seconds slipping away in his head.

Finally Gregor's eyes snapped open. They closed in a wince, and then opened more slowly. He stared at Taura's neck and uniformed cleavage in severe confusion.

"Hullo, Sire." Naismith said. While he sounded pleased, or at least pleased with himself, the strain in his voice was noticeable.

"You," Gregor's exquisitely cultured Barrayaran voice murmured as he finished his bemused examination of Taura, "are _not_ my wife." Laisa's heart rose. Mindful of appearances, she suppressed the ridiculous grin that threatened to overtake her features.

Galeni was less sentimental, staring at the screen in frustrated impotence. "Naismith should get him out _now_." he said under his breath. "_Idiot_. He needs to stop treating this like a game."

Naismith jerked his head at Taura. The sergeant set the Emperor down and sat on the floor, reducing the conversation to a more human scale. Gregor' armsman Vandyke moved to subtly prop him up, sending a cold look Taura's way. __

He doesn't look well, Laisa thought. She didn't say it, not with all eyes in the room upon him. A quiet fear rose in her again through the euphoria. _He's not safe yet._ The Emperor was the symbol of the Imperium's unity and could not afford to show any weakness.

Looking up at Gregor, Naismith bit his lip again. "How do you feel, Sire?"

"To be honest…very ill." Putting a hand on Vandyke's shoulder to steady himself, Gregor studied the room, his expression and bearing becoming markedly more formal as he noticed Fazliu. His brow furrowed at the sight of the armored medic. She, in turn, looked to Naismith for guidance.

"Could this be a side-effect…?" Naismith asked.

"Of the psoroxate? Shouldn't be." the medic said.

"Do you remember if anybody injected you or administered anything else to you?" the admiral asked urgently.

"It's all a bit unclear…" Gregor said. "They were using sonic weapons to disorient when they shot their way in." He hesitated, frowning. "I think I was stunned."

"Ah." Naismith's lip twitched. "You should have said,"

"What?"

"Yeah, that's perfectly normal. Let me get you some synergine." The glint in Naismith's eyes suggested he was perilously close to laughter. The admiral shook his head as he sorted through the medic's hastily confiscated kit. "You've _never_ been stunned?"

"Curiously," the Emperor said distantly, receiving the ampule from the Admiral and injecting himself, "this sort of thing only tends to happens to me when you're around." His color began to return after a few short seconds. "Naismith, where _is_ my wife?"

"I have _no_ idea," the Admiral said. At Gregor's stare he added, "Really! I don't. She's not in here."

"You seem to have drafted every other woman in the building," the Emperor said, not entirely approving. "Miles, isn't this lady on the _other side_?"

"Uh, this is Voahirana. And Gita Fazliu. You know Taura."

"I know Dr. Fazliu as well," Gregor said. "You didn't answer my question."

"Piotr cut a deal with the mercenaries to get the hostages out," Naismith said, "which brings us down to less than a dozen Komarrans we need to deal with. Once we get you out of the building, we can smash them."

"Komarrans?"

"Obis, Moretti, and a few of their friends."

"Ah." Gregor winced. "Where is Piotr?"

"He's holed up in Father's quarters, nursing a head wound."

"May I go, sir?" the medic asked Naismith quietly.

"Yes," he said. She vanished down the hall. Naismith looked bleakly at Taura, suddenly strung with tension again. "Sire, if you're up for it, you need to keep moving. I'll be going back for Father, even if it's too late."

Gregor waved a hand in implied dismissal. As Taura squeezed out the door he considered Fazliu, brow wrinkled. "I still don't understand what you're…" His gaze slid down, and for a sudden vertiginous second Laisa felt he was staring right at her. "_Naismith_," he snapped.

The admiral ground to a halt at the door, his shoulders tensing under his dress greens. As he turned Laisa could sense the barely restrained fury behind his flat expression. "Sire," he said tonelessly, clearly in _no_ mood for delay.

Gregor stepped closer to Fazliu, removing her necklace. The image swung around, integrating views from both the necklace and her earrings to create a fuller, more three-dimensional image. Fazliu herself was now visible, staring at the necklace as if unsure whether or not to protest its removal. It was strange to actually see her again.

"You are aware this is an actively recording holovid pickup?" Gregor asked. He betrayed no obvious emotion, but Laisa could tell that her husband was _seriously_ displeased.

"Actually, no." Naismith said after a brief pause. "Really?"

Both men looked at Fazliu. She swallowed. "I didn't want him to drop it in the fountain like my comlink," she said. Watching her, Laisa suspected she was not telling the whole truth.

Gregor's eyebrows rose slightly. He glanced at the admiral.

"I did explain to her the importance of removing all transmission sources," he said. "Apparently not well enough!"

"It's just recording. It's not _going_ anywhere," Fazliu said faintly as Gregor's stare settled back on her. "He had the studio computer banks shut down and the timeslot's long over anyway."

"Yeah, but they're on again. They had to be, for the… broadcast." Naismith's eyes widened. "Uh."

The Imperial gaze settled on him. "_What_, Miles?" Gregor said, with what Laisa thought was extraordinary patience under the circumstances.

Naismith's mouth moved as he thought things through. "There's a theoretical possibility, if I understand what Piotr was doing, that we might be live," he said with extreme reluctance.

Fazliu blanched at the thought. "I don't really think…"

Gregor's thumb found a control on the necklace, and he switched it off. The vid quality degraded horribly, and Fazliu vanished again. "This is really unacceptable, Naismith," the Emperor said. His displeasure was no longer understated.

Naismith rubbed the side of his nose with his fingers. He kept his voice level with effort, but he was obviously reaching the ragged edges of his patience. "Sire, can we have this conversation later? I need to be somewhere else _right now_."

Gregor was unamused. "Not before you explain—"

"Gita here can fill you in," Naismith cut in, mercilessly throwing his companion to the wolves. "She had a question for you. About lightbulbs." Whirling, he stormed out of the room before Gregor could say another word.

As the Emperor stared at the doorway in deep annoyance, Fazliu's olive-skinned hand reached for her earrings to remove them. The holovid began to decohere as she turned one off and flipped the other over, reaching for its switch.

The display suddenly cut out, and almost immediately thereafter the sounds of the abandoned office bay Gregor was in also vanished. All that remained was Naismith's fast, stressed breathing and the sound of his footsteps as he raced down a corridor.

Laisa heard the admiral growl something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "yanking my chain…" His footsteps slowed. A muttered "aw, shit," and some unidentifiable rustling sounds followed

"What?" Taura queried.

"Nothing." Naismith's voice seemed quieter. There was a loud plink as something (a recording device?) bounced off a wall. The sound of the admiral's voice receded further, coming as if from a vast distance. There was a sick certainty in it, a knowledge that he would be too late. "We need to move faster…"

A very faint echo of massive footfalls could be heard and then silence. Laisa took a deep breath, and shared a glance with Galeni.

"Well," Duv said.

Without the Consulate broadcast in the background, the room seemed far too quiet. Aside from a few repaired consoles receiving fragmentary information from the orbital tightbeam, most of the screens and vid-plates in the room were blank. The intimate first-hand look at the rescue operation had provided Laisa with an illusion that she knew what was going on. Anything could be happening in there now, and there was nothing she could do about it.

The silence ate at her. Without information coming in, of course no orders could go out. She should have the world at her fingertips here, but instead she was flying blind.

Duv stared moodily at the display, similar thoughts perhaps going through his head.

"When Gregor gets out, will he be coming here?" she asked.

"He has a choice of safehouses," Duv said. "It's hard to say."

Laisa tapped her fingers on the blank display table, in lieu of fidgeting.

"Do you think they'll really kill Count Vorkosigan?" she asked.

Duv sighed. "Almost certainly. He may even consider it preferable to facing the political fallout." His eyes hooded. "Speaking from a security perspective, it might be."

She didn't know quite what to say to that.

It wasn't really a surprise when the display started working again. They'd been enslaved to its whims all night. She gave Duv a what-now look as an image resolved. It was the courtroom again. Had the Komarrans finally realized their show had no audience?

But no. Laisa recognized the calm male voice speaking over the broadcast in Barrayaran Russian. "That's Lord Vorkosigan," Duv said unnecessarily. "Giving orders to the hostage teams, I expect."

"Uh, he also says the Emperor's safely clear of the building, sir," a more multilingual lieutenant said.

"Thank you, Park."he replied.

Without clear audio, it was hard to follow what was going on in the courtroom. Count Vorkosigan was still slumped in his seat, head down, drool trailing from a slack jaw. Albescu was striding back in forth in front of him, trying to drag more information out.

The guards were paying more attention to the prisoner than their surroundings, but they noticed when the large side doors opened. So did Lord Vorkosigan, whose instructions stammered to a halt mid-word.

Cordelia Vorkosigan was dressed in a long, autumn-colored ensemble with silver embroidery, Vorish morning wear fit for her rank and station. Her graying roan hair hung from her shoulders in tangled disarray. She strode into the room commandingly, trailed reluctantly by her son's armsman Roic.

"Oh, no…" Duv said.

One of the Komarran guards lifted his nerve disruptor and fired. The blue bolt hit the armsman in the chest, limning him briefly as it washed over his body. He collapsed to the floor and lay still.

The Countess turned to gaze icily at the man who had shot her armsman, daring him silently to shoot again. The guards hesitated, looking nervously at Moretti.

"Good grief," Obis said. "It's Lady Macbeth herself."

"Mr. Leary," Ser Moretti said wearily, "please detain this woman and remove her from the court."

"You will unhand my husband, now," Cordelia said in an even tone, approaching the dais. One hand was clenched at her side.

"…yes, we broke the dome. It was the correct tactical call and I fully stand by Resnick. I don't see why you're so upset, you just broke _Solstice_." Vorkosigan mumbled. Hearing the Countess's words, he looked down at his bound hands in bafflement. His wife sidestepped the bailiff's first grab and sailed past Albescu, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Moretti frowned. "On second thought, stun her and keep her here. It might help forestall further unwanted interruptions."

_What is she playing at?_ Laisa thought, before realizing that Cordelia was holding something in her clenched fist.

"Very good, ser," Leary said, drawing a stunner. Albescu seized the Countess by her arm, stepping on the hem of her long skirt to impede her escape. Watching this, Count Vorkosigan's face displayed a deep alarm only slightly blunted by the fast-penta.

Laisa barely heard the whining autoneedler fire that shredded four of the Komarran guards, but the glaring blue explosion of the tiny stun grenade Cordelia hurled at Moretti's table made her jump. The justices collapsed, the bailiff whirled and fired at the door with his stunner, and Albescu fumbled at his side for his nerve disruptor. As he drew it and turned towards the Count, Cordelia reached up with dreamlike focus. She grasped his chin, swung it away from her, and then snapped his neck in one swift motion.

"Yes," Galeni whispered. "Go..._yes_!"

The Vorkosigan armsmen surged into the room, using the room's high pillars for cover. As they exchanged fire with the remaining Komarrans, the Countess ducked under Albescu's limp body and used it to shield both herself and the Count. A needler burst cut down one of the armsmen as nerve disruptor blasts criss-crossed the room too fast for Laisa's eyes to follow.

Francesca Khatabi stood frozen next to Count Vorkosigan, too shell-shocked to react. As the last Komarran guard collapsed, Pym switched to his stunner and shot both her and Leary. He scanned the room and then nodded. "Clear."

Standing, Cordelia made her own inspection. She nodded back to Pym in hollow satisfaction. "See to Jankowski and Roic," she ordered crisply.

Pym touched his forehead. "Milady." He withdrew to give them space, kneeling worriedly over his brother armsmen.

The Countess stared at her hands a moment, her expression pensive. She took a deep breath, marshaled her features, and cautiously approached her husband. "What a mess," she muttered, anxiously scanning him for injury. Finding none, she shook her head in relief. "What _are_ we going to do with you, Aral?"

"You could rip my clothes off and we could have sex," the Count said earnestly.

His wife gave him a little Betan smile. "Later, I think." Muffled male Barrayaran titters were audible from somewhere behind Laisa.

The Count blinked owlishly at Cordelia. "I love you," he said. "Will you take off your blouse?"

"I know. Shh." She hesitated, and then slid into his lap. Wiping the slobber away from his mouth with her sleeve, she lifted his chin and kissed him into silence.

This went on significantly longer than Laisa thought was decorous, much to the amusement of the officers and men in the control center. Since their amusement was edged with hysterical relief, Laisa was inclined to let it pass. Pym and his remaining comrade moved around the room, checking their fallen enemies' vital signs and disarming them.

A hulking shadow appeared in the doorway. Both armsmen spun, weapons ready, as Sergeant Taura hurtled through, wielding an autoneedler. She relaxed at the sight of Pym, but her eyes widened in dismay as she spotted Armsman Roic lying sprawled on the floor.

Naismith dropped from his perch on her back without any self-consciousness whatsoever. If Imperial flag officers didn't normally ride eight-foot women into battle, his attitude conveyed, maybe they should start. His gaze went first to the throne and more or less froze there.

"Jankowski's dead, m'lord," the senior armsman said, "unless the medics get here fast. Roic – it's hard to say."

The admiral nodded, still staring at his parents. "All…" He swallowed. "All honor to them, then. Excellent work, Pym."

Pym didn't smile. "Compliments should go to your lady mother."

"…I see."

The expression on Naismith's face was hard to read, but by the tentativeness of his steps towards the throne he was seriously spooked. When he reached Albescu's corpse he crouched down, examining it and the nerve disruptor still lying nearby. His eyebrows rose slowly.

With a soft sigh the Countess disentangled herself gently from her husband. She looked at her son. Naismith looked warily back at her.

"Um. Mother. Could you…?" Naismith made small ushering movements with one hand as the other reached into a uniform pocket and emerged with a small hypospray. A very faint blush colored his cheekbones.

"You're late, Miles," the former Captain Naismith said dangerously. Their accents, Laisa realized, were exactly the same.

"I know," he said. Leaning around her, he carefully pressed the hypospray to his father's throat and stepped back. As the effect of the drug ebbed, Count Vorkosigan's expression became inward-looking. Clearly exhausted, he reached for his wife's offered hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back.

"You did get Gregor out?" the Count asked. His voice sounded raw from overuse.

"Of course," his son said. They scrupulously avoided eye contact with one another.

"Are we live?"

"Not last I checked."

"How much of… that… went out?" the Count asked quietly.

"Not all." Naismith's lips pursed. "It could have been a lot worse," he finished lamely.

"Heh," Vorkosigan said. He looked down at his bindings. "Miles, do you think you could get these off me?"

The admiral examined where the manacles had been auto-bolted into the throne. "Professional grade. Plasma cutter would be unwise…" he muttered to himself. "Do they unlock with a key or combination?"

"Key."

"Hmm." Naismith put one hand on his hip and frowned. "I _can_ get them open, but honestly it'll be much faster to just search everyone's pockets. Do you remember which…?"

"Afraid not." The Count sounded very tired.

Naismith nodded silently and joined the battered Vorkosigan armsmen. With a clatter of boots, Imperial reinforcements finally arrived and he began directing traffic around the room. Laisa was surprised to see Eliopoulos was there personally. A medical team with a portable cryochamber crouched around one of the armsmen, bleeding him out right there on the hardwood floor in preparation for cryo-freeze. The other fallen armsman was hoisted onto a float-pallet by Sergeant Taura and taken away.

"Ser Moretti's dead, m'lord." Pym said from behind the table.

"Nerve disrupter?" Admiral Naismith asked.

"Hit in the chest with a stun grenade. Likely blew his heart. Do you want him frozen?"

Naismith raised his eyebrows at his father.

"It'd be death in any case, unquestionably," the Count said. "Let him lie."

Naismith nodded grimly, sorting through Obis's wallet with practiced ease. "A bit cruel and unusual to bring him back just to watch us kill his son…ah." He pulled an unmarked codekey out of the wallet and strolled back to the Count's side, unlocking the manacles with a flourish. Admiral Vorkosigan rubbed his wrists with his hands, looking past his son at the carnage and the corpse of the man his wife had killed.

"Freeze Albescu, though," the Count said, getting to his feet. "I suspect we'll be shipping him back to Earth." He stared down at the man a moment longer before breathing out a sigh. "I did warn him."

"Poor lamb," the Countess added softly, following his gaze. Vorkosigan gave her a faint and ironic smile.

"Sir?" Naismith asked.

"Later, Miles," Vorkosigan said, drawing his wife into a close embrace. Their foreheads bumped. "Go deal with all this." It was hard to tell on the vid, but Laisa thought Countess Vorkosigan was close to tears. Her husband was exhausted and clearly near the end of his mental strength.

"Oh, for God's sake," Naismith said as they kissed again. He rolled his eyes and went back to helping Pym and the forensic team.

A diminutive figure in a bloodied gray suit pushed through the crowd and into the room. He was trailed by a nervous-looking Gita Fazliu, who was arguing with him. Naismith alertly intercepted the two of them and began a low conversation with his brother. Laisa couldn't quite make out what they were saying through the ambient noise, but Lord Vorkosigan looked increasingly grim. He made a gesture of dismissal at his brother with his working hand and moved to speak with Taura and the medical team.

Finding himself at loose ends, Naismith stared around the room before drifting towards Fazliu. "All's well that doesn't end worse," he said with hollow cheer. "You should probably leave before someone throws you out for not having a press pass."

"The Emperor ordered me to make sure the Lord Auditor gets his head fixed," Fazliu said vaguely, looking around the room with great curiosity. She was still missing her jewelry.

"That was a broad hint, by the way." A slight smile crossed Naismith's face. "I'll find someone to escort you out."

Her eyes widened innocently. "But Admiral," she said, "you still owe me half an interview."

Naismith's mouth opened, and he stared narrowly at her as if he'd never seen her before. "Just so." Turning, he called across the room. "Piotr!"

"Yes…?" His brother glanced around an intervening square-shouldered officer.

"Am I under arrest or not?"

Lord Vorkosigan gave his brother a look that was somewhere between annoyed and amused. "Not right now. Don't leave the city." Removing his seal from its chain, he hobbled over to a comconsole mounted in an alcove.

"Fair enough." Naismith turned back to Fazliu. "Sure. Now?"

She blinked at him, off-balance.

"There's an interesting alley down in the Foreign Quarter where the good bars are, and it's barely lunchtime," he explained. "If we can't cadge free drinks and a meal _somewhere_ after all this I'd be very surprised."

Her eyes crinkled. "Admiral, I was not… I was not _asking you out_." The Countess looked up, drawing her husband's attention to the interplay.

"Pity," he said and smiled again.

She stared at him. He stared at her.

"Aren't you _on duty_?" Fazliu asked.

"Depressingly enough, this is coming out of my ground leave," Naismith sighed. "But honestly, I'd be pleased to continue your interview… _off_ the record." Strolling out of the room with a last cryptic smile, he silently dared her to follow.

"Right," Lord Vorkosigan's voice was barely audible. "That's enough of that." The vid dissolved in an orderly fashion to an image of him standing before the room's concealed comconsole. A forensic tech ducked out of view with Gregor's great seal in a bag.

"People of the Imperium, your attention please," he began. "I am Imperial Auditor Piotr Vorkosigan, the Emperor's Voice. As you may have noticed, foreign military action against the person of His Imperial Majesty has led to unprecedented technical difficulties planetwide. In order to ensure continued operation of sabotaged critical infrastructure, we will begin restoring the network from our central nodes in three hours." He smiled faintly. "Please back up all your files."

"If you are in a deoxygenated area of Solstice, remain indoors until Dome emergency personnel can safely evacuate you. We are asking all other Imperial subjects to conserve power, water, and oxygen use until the sabotage is fully repaired."

"The Emperor has indicated that he will be making a public statement this evening." The Auditor inclined his head. "That is all."

He blinked out of existence. The holodisplay flickered and returned to the list of names it had been showing before it was hijacked. Across the room, scrambled displays and frozen comconsoles began to reactivate. Screens lit up as communications lines were restored. Within a minute, the room had transformed itself into a bustling hive of activity. Names were flashing green on the display as fast as they could be confirmed safe.

Laisa followed Galeni as he stepped to a side console, plugging in commands that were meaningless to her. "Why don't you go let my father out, Duv?" she said pointedly. "If the planet's not on fire, I mean."

Galeni scanned through views of the streets of a half-dozen domes. "All's quiet," he said, seeming amazed. "For now."

"Sir, we're receiving a priority scrambled message on our internal Solstice network", Captain Thibault said. "Do you want to take the call?"

"Yes, I think," Galeni said. "This console." Some of the remaining tension bled out of his features as a familiar man appeared on the screen.

"ImpSec Komarr, this is Vorbarra," the Emperor said briskly. "I'm at First Dome and Trade, but the aircar stored here is non-operational. Can I get a pickup?"

"Vorbarra, this is ImpSec Komarr," Laisa said over Galeni's shoulder. Gregor smiled at her, his eyes lighting up. "Stay where you are. We'll be bringing you home."


	10. Fragmentary Aftermaths

Admiral Miles Naismith leaned back in his chair and watched the woman across from him. They were in a _very_ expensive restaurant, chosen primarily to avoid gawkers and lurking reporters. Their first drink had been comped, but he could tell Fazliu was wondering if he was going to pay for her food. He was still debating it. She had made his life much more difficult than it needed to be.

He turned his attention back to his meal, nibbling some more. Embarrassing as this all had been, he wondered if it had been a good thing for Komarr to see. There were advantages to keeping the populace...distracted during that period of exquisite Imperial vulnerability. For one, less blood in the streets. He was still surprised by the relative calm in the outer enclosures of the city, given Laisner's reputation for disproportionate response.

"Why did you ask your brother if you were under arrest?" Fazliu asked.

"I imagine Duv's extremely busy, but he'll get around to me eventually." He watched her thoughtfully, wondering what exactly she'd been planning to do with her recording of the Consulate rescues. "ImpSec will be wanting to speak to you too."

"Me?" she asked, her voice squeaking up a bit.

"Oh yes."

In the silence that followed, a comlink chimed nearby. He frowned, It wasn't either of theirs, since he hadn't been able to recover them and suspected the goldfish... oh. He waved his hand urgently to shush Gita, bit his lip to suppress a sudden giggle, and hastily emptied his crowded pockets onto the table. Dag's data organizer, his nerve disruptor, some tools he'd been using in the bubble-car... typically, it had fallen to the bottom. As it chimed again, he leaned back and put himself into the right mood.

"Benin here," he said, tonelessly Cetagandan.

*

The ImpSec witness quarters were blank and undecorated, windowless and secure. Aral Vorkosigan sat on the side of a bed, staring into the distance. He had changed out of his House uniform, and his shirt lay was open and unbuttoned. Purple-black streaks marked his gray-furred chest and glistened with analgesic, betraying where he'd been worked over by shocksticks hours ago. A wine bottle was open on the side table. It was half-empty.

The door closed behind her, and they were alone. She crossed the room, sitting on the bed beside him, putting a hand on his back. Even half-drunk, he was incredibly tense.

"How is Piotr?" Aral asked. "He looked more injured than he was letting on."

"He's in surgery," Cordelia said. "Roic is somewhat responsive, but not talking yet. Hard to tell if it's nerve damage or brain damage yet, but they think the former. They're still looking at Jankowski, but they didn't sound optimistic."

Her husband nodded. His face was as blank as the room. She didn't bother to ask if he was all right. To take a man such as he, strip him of dignity and public honor...cruel, yes. Exquisitely so.

"You're no more a criminal than you were this morning," she whispered to him, taking off her blouse.

"That's the problem," he sighed.

The door chimed. She went to open it.

"Sire," Aral said, looking up. Gregor looked at her and then past her, managing not to blush at her shirtlessness. He glanced back at his armsman, who stepped aside to guard the door as his master stepped through.

"Am I interrupting?" the Emperor asked carefully.

"No, of course not. We were just getting started," Cordelia said. Her foster son twitched.

Aral started to get to his feet, but Gregor shook his head, instead approaching the bed. He held out his slim hands, and Aral placed his own within them.

It wasn't that Aral had shrunk over the years, Cordelia thought, watching this. It was that Gregor had grown to surpass him. There was no question, here, who was the ruler and who was the subject. She remembered the feel of Gregor's tiny hands over her own, thirty years past and more. So much had changed.

Aral's gaze dropped. "Your will," he said. He sounded tired as he said it, as if he might submit to death just to escape having to face tomorrow.

"I owe you a duty of protection," Gregor said, and it was Gregor speaking and not the Emperor. "I have failed you, and I am sorry." His hands tightened on those of his former Regent. "I will not permit them to destroy you."

"Politically, it would be..."

"_Enough,_ Aral. We are not going to make you a blood sacrifice for the sins of Our forebears."

"I would hope not," Cordelia said evenly.

"For one," Gregor said, less formally. "I can't be encouraging this kind of political tactic or people would be kidnapping _all_ my ministers. It was an illegal interrogation and no official charges will be laid, unless certain parties in the Counts decide to make an issue of it."

"Vorhalas... has cause." her husband said grimly.

Gregor nodded. "You will not provide him provocation. While you are on Sergyar, Our protection is upon you. We ask that you not return to Barrayar while he lives."

"Exile," he breathed.

"Civilian exile," Gregor said. "Under the circumstances, We must release you from your duties on Our behalf."

Cordelia brightened. _Excellent._ After Aral nodded slowly, Gregor gripped his broad hands one last time before releasing them.

"Will you be appointing a new Viceroy?" Aral asked.

Gregor smiled faintly. "I will be holding your wife to her oaths."

_Oh no._ "You're dumping all Chaos Colony on _me_?" Cordelia asked near-plaintively. It was a joint appointment, but her husband had handled the tedious political half. "I imagine the Ministries will have something to say about that."

"Oh, trust me," Gregor said. "_No one_ will dare to argue."

*

A half-dozen uniformed ImpSec men sufficed to hold off the press outside, but this was something that could not be delegated. Commodore Duv Galeni stepped over the threshold of the restaurant _Copolis_, brushed past the server who intercepted him, and walked to the table in the far back. His target was wearing a slightly scuffed Barrayaran dress uniform with medals, and was mostly hidden behind the table. He approached more carefully when he spotted the nerve disruptor lying in front of him near a half-empty wineglass.

Standing to attention, he saluted briskly. Naismith returned it with the wrong hand and mouthed something at him. He was on a comlink. Duv's eyebrows rose as the admiral spoke, continuing half of a very interesting conversation in a pure throneworld Cetagandan accent.

Dr. Fazliu looked up, scanning his features. She recognized the ImpSec eyes and swallowed. "Can we help you, er..." Her eyes trailed over his uniform, failing as a civilian to identify his rank.

"I need to talk to Admiral Naismith," Duv said. Her eyes widened at his accent.

"We are under...aw, shit," Naismith said, abandoning the conversation and reverting to his normal mannerisms. He grinned openly at the response he got on the comlink, turned it off, and frowned up at the new arrival. "This had better be good, Duv. I think I could have led them on for at least another five minutes."

"You _pickpocketed his comlink_?" It wasn't what he'd been planning to say, but he was floored. "Are you _trying_ to start a war?"

"It was Piotr," Naismith said, sounding amused. "Yell at him." His expression became more serious as he studied Duv.

Vorkosigans. All crazy. "You had better hope that your stolen goods don't have a self destruct, Admiral."

A slight crackling noise was heard from the data organizer on the table. Naismith smirked, reached out, and flipped it open. Its elegant Cetagandan chassis bore signs of decidedly inelegant recent hotwiring.

The commodore shook his head. It was truly bizarre to think that the young Miles Vorkosigan he had known was now a flag officer.

"Not a social visit, I assume," Naismith said.

Duv nodded. "Admiral Miles Naismith. The Emperor has commanded your appearance before him on the capital charge of treason. Dr. Gita Fazliu, the Emperor has commanded your appearance before him as a material witness."

Naismith lifted his chin, studying him with thoughtful gray eyes. "Of course," he said. He took out a credit chit, wrote a figure on it with a light-pen, authorized it, and tossed it on the table. "What's Gregor's mood?"

"He's not particularly pleased that the younger Moretti seems to have disappeared." Neither was Duv. He didn't precisely _suspect_ Naismith, but...

"He can't have gone far," Naismith said. "I stunned him pretty hard."

"Making his subsequent disappearance all the more suspicious."

Naismith chuckled humorlessly. "Maybe he'll get a honest job and turn his life around. You were a snotty little revolutionary once too."

"He's not a child. He's five years older than I am. And he made all his choices long ago."

Naismith shrugged, and Duv bumped him up several notches on his mental suspects list. After a moment of consideration, he added the Lord Auditor to that list as well.

"Are you Komarran, then?" Fazliu asked. "In Imperial Security?"

"Yes," Duv said. "I run it."

*

The blonde girl was working the counter of the print shop in Serifosa when a young man in his twenties slid up to the counter, flirting with her shamelessly. He'd brought her a handful of flowers, and sixty Betan dollars in untraceable cash.

It was a slow day. She waved him to the manufactury in the back room, and twenty minutes later he emerged with three bags full of shirts, which he left outside the back door. Coming back into the shop, he flirted with her a bit more and then strolled out the front.

It was one of the depressing parts of this job. The dissident party kids and sloganeers were always the cute ones. She didn't recognize this young man - he was probably from another Dome.

Peculiar.

Something else was off about the situation too. She had a number of other orders to fill today, so she left the counter and headed into the manufactury. The kid had covered his tracks well on the machines, but she fished a test print out of the center of the recycle pile.

**NAISMITH FOR EMPEROR**, it read, in small white print on black fabric.

She thought about that for ten minutes, and then called Tuomonen.


End file.
